by Dee Garcia
I don’t answer. I simply brush past him with a huff, hauling ass up the stairs to one of the many vacant rooms. Evidently, my lack of an answer isn’t going to deter him because he’s behind me as I’m setting Tinksley down on the bed.
“I asked you a question,” his voice rumbles.
“I’m aware of that,” I deadpan, drawing the pristine white sheets over her frail form. For a split-second I wonder if Violet should help her bathe. You know, freshen her up before she rests, but I quickly decide against it. She’s not fully aware of where she is yet, at least I don’t think she is, and all I need is her coming to mid-sponge bath. She’ll flip, and the person in closest range—namely Violet—could face unparallel danger.
“I raised you better than that, Callan. Be more res—”
“Can we perhaps not do this right now?” Spinning to face him, I pin him with my gaze. He’s got some nerve after out altercation earlier. “I have more important things to worry about than how respectful, or rather—disrespectful, you think I am.”
Cassius’ face hardens. As always, he isn’t pleased with my tone or the fact that I can give two fucks that he’s my father. What he did is unforgivable and there’s no coming back from that. I told him that a long time ago. Not sure why he continues to think that time will heal the effects of his absurdities, but hey, that’s not my problem.
Sounds like a personal one he’ll have to face for eternity.
In a series of lithe moves I didn’t see coming, he latches onto my arm and flashes us out of the room into the hall. “Last time I’m going to ask before I take matters into my own hands. What the hell happened?”
My head snaps to the now-cracked door. It’s too dark within the room for me to make her out completely, but I can just see the outline of her body beneath the sheets. “She tried to take her own life.”
“Tried?” he stresses, earning a subtle nod.
On a sigh, I turn back to my father, gritting out the words I never thought I’d hear when it came to Tinksley Bell. “She’s in transition.”
♫ Faded - Alan Walker ♫
I awake with a start, eyes snapping open, breath catching deep in my throat. Almost feels like I can’t breathe at all, like I’m caught in a noose, choking with the need for air to fill my lungs. Hand flying to my throat, I focus on calming my heart rate, on taking deep, cleansing breaths and trying to erase the disturbing images seared in my mind.
It’s fine, you’re fine. It was all just a nightmare.
Is nightmare even enough of a word? I’ve never experienced one like that before, one that feels so vividly realistic, almost tangible in a sense. What happened was depraved. Frightening that the depths of my subconscious could even venture to such obscure, morbid places. I know I’ve been a mess since Peter left but...
I never want to relive that again. Ever.
Clutching the sheets to my chest, I sit up and stare off into the darkness. It’s pitch black, save for a small sliver of light I catch leaking through the door in my peripherals. The misplaced door, that is.
That’s when my vision focuses and I note the difference of my surroundings. I’m not in my bed and this is most certainly not my room. No, it’s not my room at all. This one is vast, the walls across from me undetectable in the blanket of night. The bed is quite big, too, much softer than my own. Panic briskly creeps in from the shadows as my mind starts racing once more, heart speeding into a wild gallop.
Where the hell am I?
I literally have no recollec—
I spoke too soon. A horrified gasp breaks through the silence as my memory suddenly unscrambles itself and paints a crystal clear picture before me.
Peter. Izzy and Aester. The Atrium. The cliff’s edge. Waking up in his arms. Him...Hook.
None of that was a nightmare. It was every bit my disastrous reality and— Oh my God, am I in his bed right now?
Scrambling onto my feet in light-headed haste, I take in my surroundings a second time. There’s a window relatively close to the bed, but the curtains are drawn, only the tiniest shred of moonlight pouring in between the crack in the middle.
Judging by the little I can see, this is without a single doubt Hook’s home. Not sure if these are his personal quarters but—
“So what does this mean?” It’s a hushed voice, but the sound somehow meets my ears.
“Exactly what you think it means. The process doesn’t seem to be happening as usual, which leads me to believe there’s more at play here. Something more complicated.”
That was Callan’s voice. I’d recognize it anywhere. Idly, I wonder how I can make any of this out given how quietly they’re conversing, but I’m moving toward the door before I can begin mulling it over.
Wait. I’m moving. And I’m not in pain.
I stop abruptly a second time, eyes tracking over every inch of my body. Everything appears to be the same. From my now-tattered dress to the splotches of blood dotting my skin. Even my wings, they’re…Reaching back, I pull one into my line of sight. My eyes bulge in shock. They’re—they’re black, the tips are black, all the severed, bloodied edges shriveled inward, revealing how far I drove the blade.
How are they black?
Better yet, how am I moving so freely? As if nothing ever happened, as if there was no pain.
What the hell is going on?
“I think you should call for Doctor Ward. He may know—”
“No,” Callan interrupts the unfamiliar voice. “Not yet. I need to talk to her first once she’s come to entirely, need to see what we’re dealing with before I get Ward involved.”
Are they talking about me?
“I think you need to call for him regardless, Callan. This is serious. Do her parents know?”
“That I’m aware of? No. Like I said, she was alone on the beach when I found her.”
They are talking about me, and I want to know why. Forget how I’m moving or what’s taken over my fractured wings, I want to know why they’re discussing me. Why they’re discussing my parents.
Curiosity piqued to almost maximum capacity, I pad closer and closer to the door so as not to be heard. I’m not certain they’re right outside the entryway, as some bits seem so distant and distorted, but others are louder and far more lucid. I’m almost right at the threshold when a quick flicker catches my eyes. Rearing my head toward the source, I find my reflection awaiting me in a mirror across the way. The obsidian sheen of my wings has me scampering toward it as quietly as possible.
Alarming from a distance, my mirrored counterpart is all the more shocking from up close. It’s not solely my wings that are now blackened, my markings—the ones that only show themselves when my wings are concealed—are visible, and they’re darkening, too. The span covering the balls of my shoulders are already as dark as my wings.
That’s not all, though.
I’m normally very fair, a characteristic passed on from both of my parents, yet I’m more pale than a ghost. And my hair…It’s so dull. Lack-luster from my roots to the very tips.
What the hell is happening to me?
The question you should be asking yourself is: how are you alive?
That voice, a whispered hiss, springing forth every detail of the last twenty-four hours as the question echoes on replay.
How are you alive? How are you alive, Tinksley?
The blade slices through my wing, shooting a muffled yet agonized scream forth from my mouth. The second hurts even more, harrowingly so.
So does the third, and the fourth. The fifth, too.
My screams echo.
Blood splatters around me, on me.
I can’t stop even if I wanted to, swinging the sword into my wing over and over again like the pendulum of a clock. When almost nothing remains, I switch to the other side, repeating the debauched, ludicrous act all over again.
By the time I finish with myself, I’m sitting in a pool of tears and gold-flecked crimson. My throat aches from screeching, my mind spinning, too bleary to tru
ly make sense of anything.
Finish it.
How are you alive, Tinksley? The question comes louder, shooting my shoulders up to my ears, my eyes clamping shut as I try blocking it and these memories out.
Try being the operative word.
In a mere blink, the Woodlands open up, giving me my one and only look at my last destination—the cliff’s edge.
Where it all ends.
Where I find peace.
With the waves mercilessly crashing into the rocky shore below, I bring myself right to the ledge and allow myself to look downward. It’s a long, long way down, I know it without a doubt, but I’m not afraid.
Unlike the waves, death will be merciful, greeting me the moment I hit.
Jump.
Again, that voice.
And again, I abide to its demand.
A few steps back and I throw myself into the air. My wings try to move in their rightful, instinctual state, but each flutter elicits a pain so sharp and so deep within me, I grow more crippled by the second.
Crying out.
Free-falling.
The asperous ground now closer than the cliff’s ledge.
It’s then I realize there’s no going back, there’s no saving me, that I’m going to die—a horrified scream breaking free from my—
I gasp as I remember what that feels like. To free-fall and not wake up before hitting the ground, like one of those dreams. No, that was real. That is the most terrified I’ve ever been in my life, the one time I’ve most regretted one of my decisions. My entire life flashed before my eyes—the good times and the bad times. Everything.
Until everything went black.
Like a lightbulb shattering.
It’s not until I feel the cool trail running down my chest that I realize I’m crying, utterly terrified of what this could possibly mean. Considering where I am and who found me strewn on the beach, I think I know.
But accepting it is a whole different realm.
Suddenly, the lights in the room flip on, illuminating what confirms is one hell of an opulent chamber, a stark contrast to the comfortable, tree-dweller lifestyle I’m used to. At the doorway stands Callan and a man I vaguely remember seeing over the years. He seems shocked to find me on my feet, yet not surprised at all. In fact, there’s a hint of regret shining in his icy blue eyes.
“What in the actual fuck did you do to me?” is the first thing to come out of my mouth, a heated, explicit question that quivers the air between us.
“It was the only way.”
Those five little words trigger an instant chain reaction; the memory of those words, every time they were spoken—from his warm, petrified embrace on the beach to him banging on the door outside the castle walls. It all comes back to me, flooding harder and faster than the events that came before them.
My hand flies to my neck.
He killed me. Captain Hook killed me. Fed me his blood, then snapped me out of misery.
Because I was in misery. After everything blacked out, it felt like a millennia passed between then and the time I cracked my eyes open. I could barely see, barely hear, barely breathe. Body roaring in pain, I couldn’t move if I wanted to. Not sure how far the extensity of my paralysis extended, but I know for sure the use of my legs was gone.
And then he found me.
And now I’m this.
“Did you turn me?” My hands ball into fists at my sides as my anger begins flaring higher and higher.
Sure, there’s still fear lingering deep within there, but it’s predominantly overwritten by what might soon be rage.
A dangerous prospect with my Fae side hanging in the very delicate balance.
Callan nods just once, the most simple of movements that solders verity into actuality. “I had no choice, Tinksley. It was either that...or let you die.”
Which is exactly what was supposed to happen.
“You should have let me die! Who the hell do you think you are making that kind of choice for me?”
Hook’s presence darkens in seconds flat. “You’re out of your mind if you think I was going to leave you there, crippled, writhing in pain, waiting to die.”
“I’m out of my mind? Are you hearing yourself?” I start toward him with purposeful steps, tone incredulous. “You fed me your blood and snapped my neck clean. You turned me into this, and I had absolutely no say in it!”
We’re squared up now, well, as squared as possible anyway. He towers over me so high I have to tilt my head back to even look him in the eye.
“It was the only way, I swear to you. My blood would never have been able to heal you. You have to believe me,” he murmurs, much softer than I expected.
“I don’t have to do anything, much less believe you! Move, I’m going home!”
Callan doesn’t budge. Not even a smidge. Instead, he shakes his head. “I can’t let you leave.”
Scoffing, I shove at his chest. “Like hell you can’t. Move, Callan.”
“No.”
He’s got some nerve.
My blood boils, almost over the edge. “You wanted me alive, right? Well, here I am, fully capable of making my own choices. Move!” I shove him again, harder this time.
And again he doesn’t budge.
“Alright, fine—you’re right. The choice is yours to make. However, I will say this.” Hands firmly gripping the threshold, he drops his face at eye level with my own, arctic blues searing into my soul. “The world out there is going to look a lot different. You’re a lot different, and you’ve not even fully transitioned yet. So if you leave, realize that you’re going to be infinitely more vulnerable, and as a new vampire who hasn’t yet fed, your emotions are going to be heightened to an extreme...more than mine and the entire brood put together. This is your one and only warning, Tinksley: you go out there and act on impulse, I’ll have to treat you as I treat everyone else who commits an offense. I won’t be able to save you then, love, no matter how desperately I may want to.”
I stayed, of my own free will. Well, kind of. It was the only logical and rational choice. With Callan’s warning thick in the air, the more I thought about what he said, the more it resonated with me that he was, unfortunately, right. Don’t get me wrong, I was livid at what he forced me to become, still am—rightfully so, I would think—but that doesn’t mean he’s not right. I’m vulnerable enough as it is after being left in the dust and now that I’m a vampire, a new one at that, I’m bound to act on impulse more than ever. I was once terrified of becoming the same beast as my father, and now I’m a completely different type of beast, which is all the more terrifying. I don’t want to hurt anyone, especially those I love.
But you’re a vampire, that’s what vampires do. They hunt, they feed.
No. I don’t want to. I don’t want to hunt, don’t want to feed.
Hands sweeping up to my face, I cinch my eyes together, holding back another wave of threatening tears bubbling at the surface. I can’t stop thinking about it, about what this means moving forward.
About how I don’t even feel like one.
Do I feel different? In some ways, yes, but that could very well be because I jumped off a damned cliff and I’m still somehow alive.
Was Hook perhaps wrong and his blood did, in fact, heal me?
No, don’t be ridiculous. It’s because you haven’t fed.
“I’m. Not. Feeding!” I mutter the words aloud, eyes snapping open to the darkened ceiling above my head.
After Hook gave me his warning, I agreed to stay—for my loved ones’ sake—and kicked him out, slamming the door in his face. I recall him mumbling something through the door, but I don’t know what it was exactly. I’ve been awake since, tossing and turning, sitting up, plopping back down. Sleep is not my friend right now and I don’t foresee it happening anytime soon, either. I have a feeling it’ll continue to elude me until I make a decision, too.
Because there has to be a decision, right? A catch to this whole thing. You don’t just get to live on
scotch-free. Vampirism is a punishment enough in and of itself, but that can’t be it surely.
So what’s the catch? If I feed, I seal the immortal deal, but if I don’t? Then what?
You die, for good this time, and you know it.
I do, know it all too well. Doesn’t stop my entire body from breaking out in goosebumps at the knowledge, a fact that makes no sense if you take a moment to think about it. I was willing to die, to kill myself, no questions asked, and now the thought scares the living crap out of me. There was no silver lining when I jumped, I was simply supposed to die.
That’s it.
Yet Callan made it so; or at least in his mind he thinks he did.
A crimson veil instantly consumes my vision, a monstrous growl shooting free from deep within, jerking me upward. My pulse rages in my veins, gums burning in a vicious encore.
How dare he? How fucking dare he think this was acceptable? That I’d ever be okay with this? Who the hell does he think he is?
“Breathe, Tinksley. Keep it together,” I once again mumble to myself, inhaling a deep, steadying breath as I grasp onto just how quickly it took me to go from one extreme to another.
It was literally nothing more than the flip of a switch, a mere blink. There was no thought process behind it, no time for me to collect myself and rationalize. No, there was none of that at all, and now I’m utterly petrified, again, left wondering if my Fae side is still at risk.
Is that even possible? If so, what would that even make me? Is that why I don’t feel like this new version of myself? So many questions. I have so. Many. Questions. Which means that, while I have no desire to see Hook—much less hold a conversation with him about anything—I’m going to have to.
How else will I ever get out of here?
I mean, he’d definitely let me walk out right now, but then his warning would still sit heavy on my shoulders. I can’t leave. I’m a danger to society, to my friends, to my family.
My family. Mama. God, she must be so worried about me. Does she know? Does she know about what I did? About what I’m responsible for?