He did not just say that to me. I couldn’t believe it. Duncan was coming to his defense even after hearing how he’d forced Zoe and Lincoln to have sex and knowing he attempted to have me raped—not to mention the sadistic and brutal attack on Halloween. I flashed a venomous glare his way. Tilly would make a better leader, if only she had her vision…
“Duncan, you’re the one who has to take over. I’d ask Ben, but given the circumstances, I don’t think he’ll be able to pull his head together in time. I can’t leave until I’m sure you have this under control.”
I already knew the best way to ensure everyone’s safety was to eliminate the problem. I stood to stretch my back and legs, then moved to step aside to let them discuss the matter in semi-private. Tilly leaned over and grabbed hold of my wrist. “What about the baby? How are you protecting your own child?”
It wasn’t her seizing my arm that surprised me but the accuracy of her aim. I’d moved off to the side in the dark and was definitely not close enough for her to see me. Tilly’s fingernails dug painfully into bare skin. I pried her digits away, one by one, with more force than was necessary. “The only way to keep my child safe is to go with Halloween. Ben will not want this baby when it becomes one of them.”
A loud pop sounded just before Tilly cried out and jerked her hand away. Duncan jumped to his feet and searched the crowd for the vampire that was already on his way over. “Are you fucking with me?” Duncan raised his voice and moved to push Tilly behind him.
I hadn’t meant to hurt her. Sharing news like this was never easy. “Is your finger okay?” I asked as she cowered on the log cradling her injured hand.
Tilly nodded and slipped off the fallen tree to take her place next to Duncan. “It’s not Leo’s fault. We’re not about to blame her for something she’s not responsible for. I’m fine. This news is…is…so overwhelming. We should all take a little breather.”
Halloween reached us much faster than anyone else could have. My brother and Zoe were struggling to make it across the courtyard after him. “What seems to be the problem?”
A cooling hand rubbed small circles over my lower back; the chill seeped through my fleece. Despite his soothing touch, a shiver ran up my spine with icy fingers that stretched across my neck and grabbed hold of my scalp. I took a step forward. “We’re fine. Bad news is never easy to give or receive,” I reminded everyone.
Tilly seems to be handling the news of a vampire baby better than I did.
Duncan huffed as he pulled Tilly closer. “What have you done to her?”
“To Tilly?” Halloween’s usually rough voice scratched an octave higher. Is that doubt or suspicion I hear in his words?
“No. To Leo. What the hell have you done to her?” Duncan shouted. Our previously quiet conversation now attracted every eye and ear around the courtyard. I saw Anouk edging in behind the others as they began to make their way around the blazing campfire.
Halloween took hold of my elbow and turned me toward him. I answered the questioning look on his face with an informal shrug. “They know the truth.”
I told you secrets are bad.
I could only watch as Halloween’s eyes caught fire, his midnight lids and black brows rising to their limits. “You told them.”
“We have every right to know!” Tilly screamed. “Leo is like a daughter to me, and you promised never to hurt her again. You swore to me on your life. I trusted you. She trusted you.”
It shouldn’t have surprised me that Tilly and Halloween had a separate agreement, but I was. I never saw the two of them converse before or after his feedings, but mostly I really didn’t think Tilly would talk to Halloween about me. But then I should have known she wouldn’t give her blood without implementing her own set of conditions.
She tried to advance on Halloween, but Duncan held her back. Apparently Tilly had reached her limit of sucky news for the day. Shouting and spitting, she continued to fight against Duncan’s constricting hold. “You said you cared for her! How could you do this, Orrin? How can you defile my baby girl with this abomination?”
I took a step back. Tilly’s flailing and display of utter desperation brought horrible thoughts to the surface, thoughts and images that I’d hoped would stay buried. Her terror was the same as mine. “Take it out! Take it out of her, right now!” Those were the words I’d wanted to say when I first found out I was pregnant, and they were exiting her mouth. “I mean it, Orrin. Fix her, now!”
But I can’t give in to the fear.
I went to Tilly, grabbed her face between my trembling hands, and gave her a firm shake. “Calm down. I’m okay.”
I’m so not okay.
Blubbering out of control, Tilly yielded to Duncan’s heavily tattooed arms. “My baby girl, I’m so sorry.” Duncan released her so she could hug me. With her head tucked against my shoulder, her warm stream of tears soaked my hair.
I supported the majority of Tilly’s weight while giving her false reassurance that I’m sure neither of us believed. It was the only thing I could do for her—because there was nothing anyone could do for me.
“Silence, woman. I don’t break my promises." I could feel the pressing cold of Halloween as he drew near.
Placing his hands on either side of my shoulders, Halloween urged me to move aside. Before he could take my place to console or reprimand Tilly, she attacked. Somehow she’d managed to pull my knife from the sheath on the back of my belt without either of us noticing, and now she slammed the blade over my left shoulder and right into the center of Halloween’s chest. I was stunned, but not too stunned to shove Tilly away. She couldn’t have done this without working eyes.
Tilly can see!
Suddenly Anouk was there, a ghastly banshee, fangs and claws bared, shrieking as she leapt over the tall bonfire to land directly at Tilly’s feet. Anouk’s thin black clothes and long streaked hair smoked from the flames that had jumped up to take a lick.
Halloween staggered a few steps and removed the knife, giving Anouk plenty of room to approach Tilly. With hands raised, Tilly responded by crouching down, preparing to fight.
Tilly can see everything. Halloween fixed her eyes with his blood, and neither of them said a word. What other secrets do they have?
Then Anouk threw Tilly to the ground. Duncan moved in quickly, doing his best to pull the tiny vampire off Tilly. But out of nowhere, Kuro appeared and easily slapped Duncan aside. I did nothing to help Duncan, Tilly, or Halloween. Instead, I walked away from the chaos, gathered Lincoln and Zoe, and headed for the bunker, not bothering to look back even when the screams grew louder.
“Leo. Dammit it. Come back here. Leo!” Everyone heard Halloween’s angry shouts over the chaos. My response to his demand to return was the slamming of the metal bunker door.
Inside the bunker was completely dark to the children. Since the vampires were in charge, no one had gotten around to lighting the candles because most of the residents were locked in the panic room all day. Metal and iron sconces protruded from the bunker walls every three feet, and usually candles were kept burning day and night.
I heard a flick of a lighter a millisecond before a small flame brightened Lincoln’s pale face. He frowned as a faint slapping sound grew louder.
I’d held the bunker door open for only an instant, but that must have been enough time for the raucous noise in the courtyard to slip inside. Before I could remove my hand from the door-handle, a large blue mass careened around the corner of the dark corridor. I never would have seen Dagon coming if it weren’t for my newly adapted vision. I threw my body in front of Lincoln and Zoe, trapping them against the door, as I readied myself to take the brunt of what I thought to be an inescapable collision.
Much to my surprise, Dagon came to an abrupt stop inches from where I stood. His eyes were a pair of blazing stars in an otherwise blank void.
Dagon rubbed a deadly hand over his bald head and curled his lips back, hissing through fully extended fangs. “Out of my way…kids.”
I shoved Lincoln and Zoe past Dagon, and he vanished as soon as we’d cleared his path. When he exited the bunker, we heard nothing but his footsteps, a faint crackle of the fire, and the rustling breeze through the trees. Once the door closed behind him, we were left with only the sounds of our breathing. The tiny flickering flame from Lincoln’s lighter would ignite the candles on the way to the small closet on the second level. I didn’t know where else to go. I intended to hide my brother and Zoe until it was time to leave this place for good.
This time I’m not asking Halloween. I’m telling him. We’re taking my brother and Zoe with us.
Once Lincoln and Zoe drifted off to sleep, which took less time than I thought it would, I left the closet and headed to the pantry for a bottle of water and a little midnight snack—though I knew I’d never be able to curb the craving in my stomach with mere food. My lust for blood had drained every ounce of moisture from my mouth.
After making my way down to the ground level using mostly my newly adapted vision, more out of habit than necessity, I lit a single candle in the pantry. The dim light cast an eerie shadow over the blackened blood trail at my feet, Robert’s blood. To my right, two six-foot-high shelves lay capsized, their humble contents strewn about haphazardly. No one had bothered to clean up the mess Robert and I made.
Digging through the debris on the floor, I found a plastic bag with a few strips of deer jerky and a water bottle. It’s better than nothing.
I hadn’t even taken my first bite when I heard the footfalls in the outer corridor, heavy and methodical—an imitation of death’s approach. Pulling my sidearm, I spun around and was face-to-ghostly-face with Vincent, my once-beloved father. In the candlelight, his insipid red eyes gleamed and his white face was brittle and gaunt.
“Why aren’t you in your cage?” My finger tensed on the cold metal trigger. I wanted to end the sickness that had consumed him before he could cause more harm.
“I guess the vamp had more pressing matters to attend to.” Vincent leaned casually in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. “No need to point your gun at me. I’m not here to pick a fight.”
“Then why are you here?” I knew better than to trust him.
“I know you’re pregnant. Ben told me. I still love you, Leo. And I want you to forgive me.”
The satisfaction in his eyes burned a hole in my stomach. Now he knew he’d accomplished what he set out to do—to have me pregnant.
Vincent took a step forward, his arms outstretched. A weird trembling in my gut hit me the instant I thought of those arms closing around me.
“I don’t forgive.”
I squeezed my finger against the trigger until I heard the explosion of a single gunshot.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Vincent’s red eyes were trained on the gun in my hand as he carefully lowered his hands to apply pressure to the gushing wound where the bullet grazed his thigh. I could have shot him in the head, heart, kidneys, lungs; but I couldn’t be the one to end his miserable life.
“It’s unlike you to not take the kill.” He grimaced, pressing his fist deep into the meat of his leg just above the wound. “I guess my daughter has a heart after all.”
“Not for you, I don’t. What you did to Linc, to Zoe… You deserve way more than a bullet grazing your leg.”
Vincent shook his head. Several stark-white strands of hair stuck to the beads of sweat trailing down his pale cheeks. “I know this is hard for you to understand, but I’m trying to protect this family. I don’t have an easy job. Things aren’t what they used to be, Leo. You’ll understand better once your own child is born. Tough decisions have to be made every day, decisions that some people would have once considered cruel and unethical, but not now. Not in the Dead Days.”
Anger surged through my veins. I had to lower the shaking gun to the ground before I pulled the trigger again. A part of me wanted to end it here and now… But it can’t be me. I can’t kill my own father. “No, there are some things that will never be okay. And what you did is one of them.”
“What about what you did to your mother, desecrating her body like that? You disgusting whore.” He coughed and then spit a glob of yellow phlegm off to the side, his true feelings for me surfacing once more.
“She would have been proud to be able to protect the bunker.” I knew my mother well enough to know that about her. She put family above all else, but unlike her husband, she would never have allowed her beliefs to pull her down into the same twisted, sick place he had plummeted.
“Says you.”
I saw Kuro and Dagon emerge out of the darkness behind Vincent, their bare feet silent on the concrete floor. They were the ones who could make Vincent pay for the wrong he’d committed.
Vincent’s chapped lips parted in an odd, forced kind of smile. “But I’ll not die by your precious hands.”
“No, not by mine… Theirs.”
Vincent turned slowly. The coppery smell of his blood saturated the air around the pantry, and Dagon and Kuro were standing inches from him, black claws bared, eyes glowing, drool sliding down the lengths of their exposed fangs.
This is what Vincent needs, to be made helpless—a dose of his own medicine.
Vincent started to move and then hesitated, his left leg twitching nervously. I knew he wanted to step away, but a move like that would make him look weak.
Kuro pulled his blazing kaleidoscope eyes away from the bloody leg wound to look at me. There was a mild shift in the air, an electric charge. When our eyes met, I saw his barely contained hunger and nodded my approval.
Kuro and Dagon can drain him dry for all I care.
My father cast a glimpse over his shoulder. “Leona, don’t you dare. I’m still your father.” Though his words were strong, his wide eyes were pleading.
“You’re not my father. You’re a monster.”
Dagon moved to attack first. Dropping to his knees, he stretched his mouth so wide that I thought his jaw came unhinged. Kuro’s scarred hand snatched Vincent by the throat, pulling him forward.
I closed my eyes before their ivory fangs pierced his white skin. The juicy slurps and smacking lips of the vampire’s needy suckling assaulted my ears. I placed my hands on either side of my head to escape the sounds of their feeding and Vincent’s cries and protests.
I don’t know how long I stood there, my limbs quivering and eyes closed, trapped in darkness and hoping not to see but unable to keep the images in my mind at bay. I tried hard not to think about what was happening ten feet from me. I didn’t want to think about anything at all, but then the temperature in the pantry dropped. A swooping chill came in on my right and positioned itself directly in front of me. The cold skimmed across my eyelashes and down the length of my cheek.
Right on time.
Icy fingers took hold of my wrists, easing my hands away from my ears. Thankfully I was greeted with pure silence. The deed was done, though I had no idea how far Kuro and Dagon had taken their feeding.
“Open your eyes,” Halloween’s gruff voice commanded.
I obeyed his demand out of a desire to see his reaction when I slapped him silly. “You gave Tilly her sight back and didn’t bother to tell me?” I did my best to ignore the coppery traces of blood that still scented the air.
Halloween sneered and gave a slow menacing roll of his shoulders. “Everyone knows about the healing properties of my blood.”
His secret had been revealed the night his companions came to our aid, drank from the injured, and then healed their wounds as a form of compensation. I wasn’t the one who’d given this information away. I’d been unconscious and unaware that night and for a couple nights after. The vampires were the ones that let the truth be known. Halloween couldn’t possibly be angry at me for something he and the others had done. Could he?
“You can’t keep secrets from me and expect me to trust you.”
The real question on my mind was why he hadn’t told the other vampires about what the child I carried
would one day become. If the child is important to the survival of his race, then why hasn’t he shared the news with the others?
“When did we start trusting each other?” Halloween’s expression hardened with his purposely vicious words. He transformed into a wall of stone, not one ounce of emotion showing. For a second I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Just a few short hours ago, I thought we’d made a connection, but apparently the attraction had been completely one-sided.
Are you fucking kidding me?
I slowly slid my wrist through his long fingers and fastened my arms to my sides before I really did punch him. “You’re right. My mistake.”
“We leave tomorrow night. Lincoln and Zoe stay here.”
“No.”
I raised my arm, realizing too late that the gun I’d been holding was no longer in my hand. Not knowing what else to do, I scolded him with a shake of my finger while quickly scanning the floor for my lost weapon. “I’m not leaving without my brother.”
I spotted the gun inches from Halloween’s right heel. Halloween threw his foot back, sending the gun sailing across the pantry floor. The gun collided with the concrete wall in the outer corridor with a despairing clunk.
“You’re not in charge. I’ve made the mistake of letting you believe we are equals. We’re not. You have no control over me or the life growing inside you. I own you both.” Halloween growled as he leaned threateningly close. “Now move your ass to the closet.”
Rage scorched his handsome face. Lines deepened his forehead and the edges of his mouth, tough lines that were never there before. His bright-orange eyes were blazing with a barely contained fury. Seemingly, the angelic side of Halloween had been pushed aside as his demonic presence demanded my surrender.
No matter how scary he made himself, I wasn’t going to give in to him.
“Go to Hell.”
Halloween straightened to his full height, towering over me by several inches. I craned my neck back and watched as his lips pressed into a hard frown. “Don’t make me hurt you.”
The Dead Days Journal: Volume 1 Page 20