by Elle Grace
Blood Awoken
Book I of the Inperium Series
Elle Grace
Copyright © 2020 by Elle Grace
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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"We are linked by blood, and blood is memory without language."
~ Joyce Carol Oates
1
Viola
1.30am 5th September 2025
Frankie, my best friend, had insisted that we were to do my last night right. The gravity of that statement would not hit me until much later.
“Come on, Vi.” She whined. “How can you know you won’t like it if you have never even been there.” Her voice clear and confident. Friday evening had rolled around unexpectedly. After spending the week packing boxes for the big move out of my parents' house. School had finished weeks before and after having received a pass in my degree I was ready to move out, find a job and my own two feet. My calendar had been so overly extended it had ripped from the wall weeks before, but the date still sat marked. I was ready for the next step in life. My diary and my calendar had told me so and they were tyrants I could barely disobey. It had only taken me a single interview to land a job in a modest office that overlooked the south, more attractive side of the city. All my ducks were in a neat, tidy row that dared defiance.
Frankie bounced around my room; her blonde hair casually curled into a manifestation of Instagram perfection. I glanced at my own dull hair, managing to be both limp and frizzy in a hairstyle that was trendless. I was a mess. She cooed at me to smile, to dance, tipping shots of vodka down her throat like it was water. I had known her all my life, but it was not until recently that I had become such close friends to her. She stayed in the town we grew up in whilst most others spread their wings and flew the furthest distance away they could manage. Personally, I could not stomach going away. After a few Facebook messages back and forth, we were best friends. She laughed at my childish yet strip club like hot pink bedroom and I constantly reminded her of the time she walked in on her mother fucking the gardener over the kitchen bench. We were made for each other.
“You are a graduate now.” She looked at the certificate that my dad had framed. “You need to celebrate that shit.” Her tone barely hid the slight sting of jealousy that sat there. Frankie was on a gap year which was nearly four years long. Amongst the promises of travel and work experience she had promised herself and her nearly ten thousand Instagram followers she had only really found a string of futile relationships and a way to spend her dad’s money. It was what it was. When I looked at Frankie, I had a strange feeling that I could not shake. Maybe it was the precarious situation that her party loving, over the top lifestyle was beginning to push me towards or maybe it was the fact nothing about it seemed real, there was so little behind her eyes sometimes. Everything was just going through the motions. I shook that thought off. It was dangerous to think like that, but I did not know why.
Our evenings plans were simple, we were heading to the only nightclub in our town, Sin. Luckily her cousin worked the door which meant free entry and probably free drinks. Sin was a shabby run-down venue that sat looking almost derelict on the main street, but on a Friday and Saturday night it came alive. As alive as a zombie in a crappy “B” grade horror movie anyway. Business always boomed at Sin at the weekend, but a monopoly always did that to an establishment. The drinks were cheap, the floor was sticky, and the music was always that little bit too loud, a typical club. It was infamous, it was iconic. From its glory days as a strip club and drug front in the early 90’s to a squat house for a house. It was restored to a club but the ghosts of its past still haunted the building in every bass tremble. The only place to have any real fun after the sun went down in the town, we lived in. Most of us had memories of attending lockdown’s there when we were underage, crappy fake ID’s in our bags that would have fooled no one. We lived in a town where everyone knew each other, it was known we were underage, just no one cared.
This Friday night was no different than any other at Sin, apart from the fact I was there rather than at home studying. Which had been my life for the past few months. My Mum had encouraged me to go out after the third or fourth time she found me passed on my desk my head in a book. Our family always joked about how I had not inherited their party loving genes. It was always particularly funny because I was adopted. My adoption was clearly no secret to me. I had grown up with the knowledge of it. We lived as a happy little family unit in a suburban paradise. There was no memory of a life before this family, in fact if they had not been honest with me, I might never have even known.
Sambuca was our liquor of choice at the bar. It was always a bad decision. The sticky liquorice taste lingering in our mouths long after we had drunk it. Staining the air around us with the scent. I felt a little uncomfortable in the stiletto heels and tight dress I had been forced to borrow from Frankie. I was constantly playing with the hemline, praying that the lights were low enough to hide the lumps and bumps I would bury with oversized sweaters and jeans on a normal daily basis. The whole outfit seemed somewhat impractical. Her dress sense was so different than mine, but she had insisted if I were to go out with her, I had to dress the part. She had handed me the dark purple dress and even though I had protested, I liked the colour on me. Frankie was seemingly super confident. She seemed to personify the saying that ‘blondes have all the fun.’ She was carefree and her confidence was beautiful in her neon pick attention grabbing dress.
“I just don’t understand why I have to be so dressed up for Sin.” I protested; the pageantry of a night out always seemed exciting yet tiresome to me.
“You will thank me later!” She laughed. The memory dancing around my brain as we walked through the crowds on the dancefloor, making me smile. The floor buzzed to life as we reached the centre of the dancefloor just as a new house track was starting up and the DJ was muffling something through his microphone. The floor below up lit up in an assortment of colours to the beat. It was distracting and captivating. Next to the DJ booth was a small platform stage featuring some of the older local single women strutting their stuff for the males watching. Frankie eyed it up, deciding whether she wanted us to join the peculiar mating ritual which David Attenborough would have been able to make a Netflix series out of commenting on. Deciding against it, Frankie began to make a claim on the centre of the dance floor, moving her hips wildly to the music. She danced loudly in front of me, encouraging me to join in and I watched as guys flocked towards her. I danced awkwardly, not moving to the rhythm. I was never a good dancer, rhythm escaped me. She grinned as a guy around our age begun to grind remarkably close to her. He tried to whisper in her ear, but it was more of a shout over the music. It meant that I could hear every word, making me feel uncomfortable as he described what he was going to do to her in graphic detail, it would have been an understatement to say that he certainly was not Shakespeare.
“I’m going to get some water.” I shouted over the music to her, needing to get away from the conversation about his cock.
“Don’t get water!” She shouted back. “Only shots!” She laughed as I tried to push across the dancefloor back to the bar. Hoping the bartender would oblige in me by putting tap water in shot glasses for me to drink to fool Frankie. I rolled my eyes and chuckled to myself at the thought. I walked straight into a large object and jumped backwards looking up at a tall and rather broad man.
“Sorry.” I mouthed trying to get past him. “Excuse me.” He
did not move, he just kept looking at me with a strange kind of intensity. His brown eyes were pulling me in as the lights danced across them, illuminating his well-structured face. His expression was hard to read. He raised his eyebrow slightly as he regarded me, almost like he was assessing me. It made me feel both uncomfortable and excited. The moment lasted too long. He leaned in, his hand gently stroking up my neck eventually stopping on my cheek, his thumb lightly caressing my skin. His lips found mine, the slight stubble that lined his jaw bit at my skin. My first thought was to lurch backwards and push him off me, but my hands found his chest and stopped. His lips still on mine, my eyes closed. The world around me seemed to silence and suddenly we were the only two people in the room. The kiss ended as abruptly as it had begun. Opening my eyes, he flashed a torch at my face, it had a weird green hue to it, and it was bright. It made me blink and when I looked again, he was gone. It was possibly the strangest interaction I had ever had in Sin and that was saying something. It was as if he had never even been there. I began to reprimand myself for my overactive imagination. Looking around for him seemed pointless and the torch he had flashed at me was weird. Maybe it was sexual thing, I thought. I looked down at my dress, I was a lie in this club. I was an imposter. Had only kissed me as bet? No man that good looking was going to be interested in me. I was looking into it too hard. It was meaningless and brief, even if I could not shake the feeling of his lips on mine. I must be rational, I told myself. If I looked for him, I would find him laughing with his mates at how I had kissed him without a second thought. The words they often labelled women dancing amongst them like badges of degradation. Turning back, expecting to see Frankie and her judgemental smile. I took a breath and looked to where she was dancing minutes before, I was surprised as she too was gone. Frankie had a habit of disappearing on night’s out. It was one of her less thoughtful habits. She would often be in the bathroom or just outside of Sin, eliminating her body of the excess of alcohol she had drunk. She was notorious for not being able to hold her liquor.
The music descended into more of a discord of noise and lights. I was drunk. Too drunk. I headed out of the main club into the corridor where the toilets were. I looked in the bathroom and after helping about fifteen girls fix their makeup, outfits, and lives, I did not find her, so I decided to check the lane by the side of the club. I lost track of time and how long I had spent in the bathroom. I needed to find Frankie and I needed to head home.
Walking up the stairs and out of the club, I took a deep breath and let the feeling wash over me hoping my head would clear with the fresh air outside. I stumbled slightly onto the street, my shoes burning my feet. There was still no sign of Frankie. Something was beginning to feel very wrong, my stomach churned, and I hoped it was just the alcohol and not something more sinister.
“Hey Vi, are you okay?” Frankie’s cousin asked as I passed him, my face reflected my growing inner anxious feelings. He looked a little concerned.
“I’m fine, have you seen Frankie?” I was straight to business. I was equal parts mad and worried about Frankie.
“No, I haven’t but it’s been a busy night, she could’ve slipped past me. I would check the lane if I were you.” He dismissed me for the attention of some very drunk girls who were trying to jump the queue into the club, claiming they were on the VIP list. Sin did not have and never had a VIP list.
Some oddly dressed men and women brushed past me. There were five of them in total. They were dressed head to toe in black. It seemed very uniform and ill fitting. A strange symbol almost seemed illuminated on their chests. One of the women stopped and looked at me, blowing me a kiss. Her lips a dark scarlet. I could have sworn her eyes flashed a bright burnt orange for a moment as she winked at me. It must be coloured contacts, I thought. Although it was not something you really saw in the town outside of Halloween. Frankie’s doorman cousin never even stopped them. It was like he never saw them. It was strange because I could have sworn that I recognised a couple of them. It was a bizarre feeling because I knew I had never met them, but I felt a sense of familiarity that swelled inside my chest.
Ginger walking across the quiet cobbled road, cursing the shoes on my feet, I was growing increasingly angry that Frankie had just left me. I had to see if I could see her in the lane. The notorious vomiting spot. On a warm Sunday it would be carefully avoided by everyone in the town for the stench would waft through the air. Everyone had a story about the time they had ruined a favourite pair of shoes in that lane.
Something inside me twined and I felt a little out of sorts. As I reached the pavement on the other side, the club behind me exploded. I had never felt anything like it. The force of the explosion knocked me forward and to the ground. Everything went quiet, like all the sound had been sucked out into the sky. The world was blurry and hazy for a long moment. Colours danced around me, and I felt as though I was in a big bag of water. The light was too bright, and the pavement was too hard.
Pain ripped through me for a second reminding me that I was still alive. Questioning everything I allowed myself to take a breath, my heart felt it was going to beat out of my chest. My knees were sore from the impact with the ground and as I turned over, I could see they were heavily grazed. Blood trickling down my legs. The purple bodycon dress was torn, and I had lost my shoes. Frankie was going to kill me for ruining her stuff, but I did not care. I could feel the heat of the frames engulfing the club. I could see no one else on the street. I did not understand where the people from the queue had gone. They had run to safety, I thought to myself.
A hand was in front of me, snapping me out of my own little world. I followed it up to its owner and was surprised. The man I had kissed next to the bar offered me his hand to help me up. I cannot be sure if he said anything straight away as I would not have heard it thanks to the explosion blasting my ear drums. Shaking my head in disbelief I took his arm and he lifted me to my feet abruptly. Just beyond him, the club was collapsing from the devastating flames, the building all but destroyed and I just knew Frankie was in there. The bricks crumbled like dry sand. Dread washed over me. Trying to run over to the club to help, his arm grabbed me around my waist and held me in place. I tried to fight him off, kicking, punching, and screaming. He deftly placed a small needle to my neck. Sound was beginning to return to me. I could hear my own ragged breath shouting and swearing at him.
“I’m sorry about this.” He barely mumbled abruptly close to my ear as the darkness took me.
2
Viola
2.30am 5th September 2025
A smell of chemicals and the dull hum of a pop song filled my senses and my eyes fluttered open. I could feel I was in a moving vehicle. I looked down at myself strapped down onto an ambulance gurney with large thick leather straps that looped around my upper arms and legs. The van around me did not look much like an ambulance. Both the van and the gurney were dated. The walls were tarnished and there was no medical equipment in sight. My hands were cabled tied together at my wrists in front of me, I could feel the plastic biting at my skin. It seemed like overkill considering I was already strapped down. It was almost like I was dangerous, I thought to myself struggling against my bonds.
Sat across from me were two men, one I recognised to be my mysterious kisser and the other one was someone new, he was very dark skinned and seemed to be about my age. He had a kind face and was dressed very stylishly. I stopped wriggling when I noticed them watching me.
“Where am I?” I asked quietly. Testing my voice. I could feel the panic and the anger rising inside me, but I tried to stay calm, like all the self-help videos I had watched about being in a kidnapping situation. There was no point screaming in a moving vehicle I reminded myself I should save my energy for when we stopped.
“Safe.” The kind faced man said with a smile that made me angrier.
“What happened?” A dreamy sense of presence washed over me. Everything seemed like a movie I had gotten over invested in.
“There was an expl
osion.” The kind man replied calmly.
“I need to go back. My friend is still there!” The panic was getting worse as the memories flooded through me. Frankie was still in the burning club.
“You can’t.” The large man I had kissed said definitively and looked away from me. The other man gave him a look. His thick rural Australian accent was extremely clear.
“Who the hell are you?” I shouted. He looked back at me, his eyes narrowing daring me to continue my act of defiance. “Take me back now!” I demanded.
“I said we can’t, don’t you listen?” He gritted his teeth; I was making him mad. He rubbed his brow roughly.
“Why the hell not?” I retorted ignoring his remark.
“Because you died in that club.” He snapped. It was a cold way to say it.
“I…I…what?” I was completely taken aback. Very confused. I was clearly not dead; I could feel and talk. No one spoke for a moment. I looked up at the roof of the van wondering what he meant. I was not dead. I was in a van with a couple of absolute psychos, I thought to myself.
“You didn’t really die, obviously. We just had to make everyone think you died.” The other man spoke, trying to offer some kind of explanation. “Colt, you need to go a little easier on her.” He hissed at angry brown eyes. “How would you feel if this was you?”
“I would take it better.” He responded coolly.
“You killed all those people, just to fake my death?” I was shocked, thinking about how packed the nightclub was. It was insane. This had to be an elaborate prank, I thought. It could not be true, there was no way someone could get away with it.
“Oh no sweetheart, you aren’t that special.” The one named Colt laughed at me. After he finished chuckling, he said. “The fire-bombing was your government.” I could not understand what he was on about. My earlier ideas of him kissing me for an elaborate joke had a vein of truth to it and it made me feel worse about myself. The government had no interest in destroying a night club, I thought to myself. There would be no way that they would kill or hurt that many people.