Sapphyre: Burden to Bare (The Sapphyre Saga Book 1)

by Felicia Leibenguth

  “Lexi!” Katrina yelled after me.

  I didn’t stop. I kept heading for the car. I was halfway when a hand grasped my shoulder.

  Katrina’s voice softened when she spoke. “Alexis, don’t leave, please. I can’t tell you how I know about Zach, but Bree has nothing to do with this. I swear. Please, come back.”

  I didn’t turn to look at her, but I said in a voice made of steel, “Let me go Katrina.”

  “I’m sorry.” Her voice remained soft as she removed her hand.

  I turned, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Katrina’s face. She looked like someone had slapped her. She looked at the ground. Her eyes are so sad that I almost felt bad… almost. I’m too angry.

  “What!?” I said in the same steel voice.

  She raised her head, and looked at my face, but not directly into my eyes. She has small tears pushing themselves out of the corners of her eyes. That’s when I turned toward her completely.

  “I’m sorry Lexi. I didn’t know you had that much of a connection with him. I didn’t mean to upset you like that.” She looked to the ground. “I’m sorry. Please, please forgive me, I won’t do it again. Please don’t leave.” Her eyes moved to look into mine. She’s really upset and sorry. She didn’t have to say a word about how sorry she is, I can tell by looking into her eyes. “Please? You’re the only friend I have!” She cried now. “Please don’t leave.” She has both hands on my shoulders holding me here. It looks like she’s about to have an anxiety attack or something.

  I stood in shock for a moment. There’s something else she’s hiding from me. I don’t know how I can tell, but I just know. Right now, Katrina isn’t looking so good. Her body shook, and she looks paler than usual. No matter how mad I am, I can’t, in good conscience, leave Katrina alone.

  I steadied her on our way back to the benches by the fire, she looks like she is about to fall over. We sat down, and I waited for her to calm down a little. Before I can open my mouth to say anything Katrina clutched her arms around my neck and squeezed, hugging me so tightly I can hardly breathe.

  “Thank you! Thank you for not leaving!” Katrina blubbered.

  “Katrina, what’s really going on here? There’s something going on that you’re not telling me.” My voice softened. Seeing her like this pushed away all my anger. I guess that’s one of my weaknesses. I always have to help people.

  Katrina stared at me in horror for a moment placing her hands on her lap and shook her head. “I can’t. You don’t understand.” She sounds terrified. She looked around her small backyard squinting trying to find something.

  “Katrina, do you want to go inside?” I said calmly.

  She’s acting so uneasy I thought it might help to get out of the darkness.

  “No, it doesn’t matter where I am.” Her voice became shaky.

  “You need to tell me what’s going on. Why are you so scared?”

  She’s scared, or I should say terrified, that’s obvious. She kept her eyes roaming around the yard, and her hands are shaking in her lap. She won’t look at me, but she did something that surprised me. She took her one hand and put it on the collar of her shirt. Closing her eyes, she pulled down the fabric several inches. I can see her shoulder and her collarbone.

  That’s when I gasped in shock.

  Truth

  There are two small marks just under her collarbone. They’re both perfectly round and about two inches apart - puncture wounds. Brilliant red against her skin, they look to be a few days old.

  I kept staring in dismay, and Katrina moved her hand, letting her shirt cover the wounds. She went to the sleeve of her right hand and pulled the fabric up her arm. She moved her right arm toward me and flipped it over, palm side up. There, on her wrist, are the same marks, exactly the same as the one under her collarbone. These look older, almost healed, maybe a few weeks old.

  “Katrina what the -” I’m… I don’t know what I am!

  “Wait,” she cut me off in a soft low voice.

  She covered up her wrist and moved her hand to pull up her left sleeve. There, again, are the same marks on her other wrist, but they’re faded just like an old scar. Not quite invisible on her skin, but visible enough to notice. After a few seconds, she pulled her sleeve back down into place.

  Katrina turned to look at me with sad, scared eyes.

  “Now you know,” Katrina still spoke softly.

  “Katrina… what the hell is going on!?” My voice crept up in volume, though I tried to keep it down.

  “Shhh!” She hissed. “He might hear you!”

  “He? Who’s he?” I started to look frantically around the yard like Katrina did earlier.

  “He is the one that did this to me. I told you, things out there are evil. That they’re lurking in the shadows.” She kept her voice low and calm.

  “What the hell is going on Katrina!? Who is doing this to you!?” I held back my shriek the best I could, but I still have Katrina on edge.

  “I can’t really explain it right now. He’s out there and if he knows I told you, he’ll kill you!” She looked at me again with horror in her eyes.

  “I don’t care! Tell me what’s going on!?”

  She shook her head. She refused to tell me.

  I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward my car.

  “What’re you doing?” She exclaimed nervously.

  “Get in.” I tried to keep calm, but it’s not working very well.

  “Why?”

  “I’m not telling you again, now get in.” I glanced at her, my eyes saying, get-in-or-you-will-be-forced.

  She got in without another word. Smart girl.

  I started driving to the other end of town toward the hospital.

  Once Katrina realized where I’m taking her, she about flew out of the car screaming.

  “What are you doing!? I can’t come here, they will think I’m crazy and not to mention he will kill me! Do you want me dead or thrown in a psych ward!? Because they will! They will throw me in a psych ward, they have before! Please don’t, oh God please no…” Katrina is literally freaking out. She kept panicking, though I stopped the car after she said, ‘he will kill me’.

  “Katrina, stop it and look at me. Tell me what is going on and who is he or I’m making you go in there!” That is an empty threat, I really wasn’t going to make her, but it’s the only way I’m going to get it out of her.

  “You… you wouldn’t!?” She’s staring at me with wide-eyed horror.

  “Try me,” I kept calm. Yelling at her isn’t going to get us anywhere.

  “Okay, okay… I’ll tell you. Just please, not the hospital.” She started crying now.

  “Where do you want to go then?” I asked completely calm. I feel horrible though for scaring her to death. I would make it up to her.

  “Anywhere but here, please!” She begged.

  I started driving again. I headed out of town toward home.

  Katrina started to relax once I turned onto Route 63.

  ***

  “It started with the accident of my dad and little brother,” Katrina was saying.

  We’re sitting on my balcony with hot chocolate and marshmallows while we looked out over the lightly lit front yard. All the house lights are on and of course, the moon’s out too, so it helps with the lighting. It’s cold out, so we covered up with some fleece blankets while we each sat in chairs next to each other.

  “After the accident…” Katrina continued. “There were a few things I couldn’t understand. My brother was thrown from the car, but he always wore his seatbelt. Dad always made sure of that. So, it doesn’t make sense. When the coroner examined him, they said he lost a lot of blood, causing his death. Otherwise, he could have survived. When his funeral came… when I went to say goodbye to him… I noticed something. It was on his neck, two puncture wounds. At the time, I didn’t know what it could have been, but I will never forget the image of seeing those on his neck. Never.” She paused briefly and wiped a tear from her
cheek.

  I glared at her in pure disgust, anger, and pain. Not only losing part of your family but also finding something like that on your little brother.

  “Shortly after I found the marks, I did some digging into the accident. The cops didn’t like that too much, but they never knew how much I actually discovered.” Katrina smirked, a little smug. “No one ever noted the marks on his neck. I also learned that the other driver died at the scene, but the most important thing of all… the loss of blood, they couldn’t explain. In the reports, they said there wasn’t much blood at the scene. That’s when I did some research on the net and got more than I bargained for. There were cases of car crashes in almost all the other states that couldn’t explain the blood loss of those victims. One was a crash at thirty miles an hour, but both people died due to loss of blood. Other than that, nothing was wrong with them. So, I started digging deeper. When I came across what I found next, I couldn’t believe it at first myself. It was a site that many people believe to be fake, made up fiction. Once I saw the pictures of the wounds, I was sure this had to be it.” Katrina paused and looked at me.

  I nodded for her to go on though I’m horrified. Not to mention terrified of what she found.

  “It was a sight about… Vampires. Real ones, not the fake movie made up ones. The pictures they showed proved to me that they’re real. Vampires are real.” Katrina stopped talking again.

  She looked at me and studied my face with her eyes. I think she was waiting for a reaction, but she didn’t really get one. My face froze at the moment she said Vampires. They’re real? It… it can’t be. They’re fictional things made up for movies, made up from people’s minds to scare others… aren’t they?

  Katrina started talking again when I didn’t say a word, or even blink for that matter.

  “I knew from comparing it to Thomas’s marks, that they were identical. I knew then that my brother was killed by a Vampire. That’s when I was thrown in a psych ward. I told my mom about what I found. It was only about six months after the accident when I told her. She thought that I finally snapped because I never cried after the funeral and I stayed in my room a lot more. Of course, she found out later I was researching about Vampires. After I told her, she didn’t believe me, so I showed her the pictures I found. I told her about the one on Thomas and when she couldn’t get me to stop thinking a Vampire killed my brother… she took me to the hospital.” Katrina took a deep breath before continuing.

  “They did an evaluation on me, and I told them about what I found, so they placed me in the psych ward. They thought I lost it because of the stress of losing Thomas and dad. I was there for almost two months. The first month I tried so hard to get someone to believe me, but of course, no one did. They gave me pills to calm me down, but I never took them. They never found out about that. They wanted to send me to a special home.” She sneered the word. She’s clearly very angry about it. “When I found out, I started to keep my mouth shut about the Vampire. I started to act normal again and when they asked me about the Vampire stuff, I just told them that I was feeling guilty about the accident. I still do of course. Shortly after that, they released me to go home with mom and those pills. Mom was so depressed over the loss, she never paid any attention to whether I was taking the pills or not. So, I didn’t have to pretend.” She rolled her eyes then continued.

  “It was a few nights after leaving the hospital that changed my life forever. It was the first night he came.” She shivered. “I was home alone while mom was working the night shift. It was about nine o’clock, so it was dark out. I answered the door and there was the most beautifully sculpted man I’d ever seen. He was tall and muscular. His skin was so pale it almost seemed to glow in the night. His dark hair was in disarray like he just stood in front of an industrial-sized fan. His eyes were like sparkling green gems and I couldn’t take my eyes off of them, they were mesmerizing. He opened his mouth to speak and said ‘May I use your phone? My bike broke down out front.’ It was the most wonderful sound I ever heard. I peered out behind him and sure enough, there was a black motorcycle parked on the side of the street. So, I let him in. Little did I know he had no intention of using the phone...” Katrina stopped talking. Her breathing came harder than before. She’s remembering that first night and I’m sure it wasn’t a pleasant one.

  “It’s okay you don’t have to go on. I understand,” I spoke slowly and softly.

  Katrina’s voice became hard-edged, and her eyes flashed to mine, hardening like stones. “No, no you don’t. No one does. You need to hear this so you do, so you fully understand what it’s like having your blood taken from you to the point it almost kills you. To where you pass out and your mom finds you on the floor thinking you’re dead. You need to understand.”

  “Okay. I get it. Whenever you’re ready, please go on.” I looked away out to the yard.

  It took her several minutes until she started to speak again, but this time she spoke with hatred.

  “He came in as soon as I told him he could use the phone. When I turned my back for just that split second, I heard the door slam and he had his arm around my neck forcing me on my tip toes. He held me there, and I could feel him tightening his arm around my throat as it was getting hard to breathe.” Katrina placed her hand up to her neck like she’s grabbing the arm around her throat again. “He told me I was causing some problems for him, and that he should kill me right then, but he told me he also likes to play with his food before he drinks them dry. He threw me to the floor and told me to stay quiet or he was going to kill me, then wait for mom to get home and kill her too. So, I kept my mouth shut and never made a sound. He grabbed me by the neck and lifted me off the floor with one hand. I could see no sign of effort in his face; he made it look like he was picking up a feather for all the effort it caused him. He pinned me up against the wall. There was nothing I could do but dangle in the air. I had my hands wrapped around his arm and he smiled. He told me that humans were so weak, but he was impressed with my silence, he didn’t think I could do it. Since I was being so cooperative, he said he was going to start making regular visits to feed. I wanted to gasp when he smiled and I saw two large, bright white fangs extend from the top row of teeth. I was starting to see black spots as I couldn’t breathe, and I was about to pass out. Just before I passed out, he spun me around and threw me onto the couch. I laid there on my side for a moment gasping for breath. I was coughing, and I wanted to scream, but all I could think about was saving my mom. I didn’t care at that point if I died as long as mom was going to be safe.

  “While I was trying to get my breath back, he stood there watching me. He almost looked like he was in disbelief. When I looked at him, he smiled with the long fangs pushing into his lower lip, creating indents. He deliberately walked over, and leaned over me, lifting my face up to look at him. I wanted to scream so bad that I had to choke it back down. I tried not to show fear; I kept my face hard and my eyes fierce. I think he liked that though. He bent his face down to mine and at first, I thought he was going to kiss me but then he moved to my neck. It felt like someone put two red-hot fire picks in my throat. I wanted to pull away and scream like a raging lunatic, but he held my face up under my jaw so I couldn’t open my mouth, nor could I move an inch. The pain was so overwhelming I didn’t know how much I could take. Eventually, the pain started to numb with the more blood he took. He kept me in that position for a long time. My vision blurred, and I felt like I was going to pass out. I hung on for as long as I could before everything completely blackened, I couldn’t see anything. I could feel my mind wanting to shut down, but I took what strength I had left to fight it. It took everything I had not to completely pass out. I stayed conscious long enough to feel his fangs remove from my neck, and hear him say, ‘You taste a lot like your brother, but full of fire. Don’t worry; I won’t kill you… yet, just as long as you keep your mouth shut.’ I heard the door click, and I knew he was gone. I had enough thought remaining to get to a phone, but as I tried to roll
off the couch, my mind darkened. I didn’t even feel my body hit the floor. The next thing I knew mom was screaming and shaking my side. She was crying, and all I cared about that she was okay and alive. I remember the first words that came out of my mouth were, ‘thank God you’re okay.’ She thought I was delusional. She wanted to call the hospital, but I refused and told her I wanted to go to my room and that I only passed out because I stood up too fast. I knew she didn’t believe me, but I didn’t know what else to say. She helped me to my room, well practically carried me. It felt like I was disconnected from my body, I couldn’t feel anything. On the way up the stairs was when everything started to register with me. What he said came back to me and it was then I knew he was the one who killed my little brother. I wanted to hunt him down and kill him with my bare hands, but as soon as I laid on my bed I was out again. When I woke up, mom was sitting in a chair by my bed. I was so weak I couldn’t get up, I could barely sit up. It was like that for a few days and I slowly got better. Mom kept pressing the hospital issue, but I told her I was afraid, and she understood.

  “It was about two weeks later when he returned. And he’s returned every two weeks like an alarm clock. Except lately it’s been almost every week. This one,” she laid her hand over the bite by her collarbone, “was from last night.”

  “Last night!? What do you mean last night!?” I roared. It was the first time I’d spoken since she started talking.

  “Just what I said. He came last night. Why do you think I’m so on edge tonight? I’m afraid he’s still lingering around watching me.”

  “How am I supposed to know you’re some Vampires regular meal!? I didn’t even know these things existed until now! Besides, that thing looks days old, not from last night!”