Fading Darkness (Bloodmarked #1) (42 page)

“Hol!” I screeched, not recognizing my own
voice. “Holly!” I screamed louder, frantic with need to see her come back. I
shook her lightly. “Holly, please.” I bent over with the force of my sobs.

 She became still, and I refused to believe
she was gone. Her body was still here, in my arms. The Holly I knew had to
still be here, too. She couldn’t be gone. Her whole life couldn’t have just
left her so easily, in a single instant. She couldn’t be.

She was. This shell of humanity was all that
remained of Holly on earth, but she was no longer here.

“NO!” It was an earsplitting scream that
left my throat raw, but I barely heard it behind the ringing in my ears.
Everything around me blurred. My eyes stung with building tears.

For the first time in my life I shed a tear,
and it didn’t stop with just one. I was shaking uncontrollably between sobs.
There was a tearing inside my chest as they ripped through my lungs and tore
through my heart. I was hysterical beyond words at that point so I went into
action.

I had no idea what I was doing but knew I
had to at least try something. I slowly slid the knife out of her stomach and a
pool of blood formed behind it. I wasn’t sure why I did what I did next, but I
just knew I had to do something, anything. I immediately sliced my own wrist
with the knife and let my blood drip over the wound. Desperation forced me to
at least try, but nothing happened. I waited as long as I could.

Sirens broke through all the noise in my
ears, and I knew I needed to leave before facing the questions and suspicions.
I ran my fingers over Holly’s eyelids to shut them. With one last glance, I
collected myself with my last bit of strength and turned toward the stairs and
darted out to the street, taking the back alleys until I was several blocks
away. When the sirens were completely out of earshot, I collapsed to my knees
and couldn’t hold myself together any longer.

I broke down, releasing all those emotions I
had denied myself throughout my life. What did it matter now? I just lost the
one person I wanted to protect, my friend. I was kidding myself all this time,
telling myself it wasn’t a friendship. I could walk away at any time. I allowed
myself to get close to someone thinking it was harmless because I wasn’t
attached. I thought to myself that if I wasn’t attached to someone I couldn’t
get them killed, but that was a lie.

All this time I searched for my connection
to my humanity, only to have it taken away from me before I could find it. Gavin
had brought out feelings in me other than rage and hate that I never wanted to
allow myself to feel. But I felt human, like a normal person when Holly and I
hung out together, whether I wanted to or not. The grief I felt for her loss
now was a more than human reaction that I would not deny myself. She would not
have wanted me to deny it, and I wouldn’t dishonor our friendship by rejecting
any of my human feelings ever again.

Another sharp pang shot through my stomach
when Gavin crossed my mind. There was a lot of denial there, too. Those
emotions were for a different day, but I couldn’t let my pride get in the way
of asking for his help. I just hoped he hadn’t shut me out completely after our
big blow out. I needed his help more than ever, and if I was being honest with
myself, I really needed to hear his voice right now. His arms around me would
feel pretty good right now, too, but I would settle for his help.

I fished out my phone from my pocket and
quickly punched in his contact number, hitting send. It rang five times before
going to an automated voicemail response. It was too late. I burned that bridge
before I had the chance to tell him how I felt. I was completely alone, now.
There was nobody left in my life. I had nothing, no one.

I curled in on myself and let the pain and
grief wash over me. The sobs returned. I reached out and placed a palm against
the dumpster in front of me to brace myself against the uncontrollable shaking.
The tears fell freely now, tears of grief for the loss of my best friend, tears
of guilt for feeling responsible for her death, tears of frustration for
denying all those feelings in my heart I couldn’t hold back any longer. It was
impossible to deny them forever. I now welcomed the tears and accompanying
emotions. I had no one left that I cared for, but Gavin had been right. The
fact that I had cared for them at all told me just how human I was. Even though
I was torn up inside, I’ve never felt more alive, and I couldn’t give that up
just when I found it. That newfound will to live left me feeling more powerful
than when I had only the anticipation of death. There was a certain amount of
strength in having a true appreciation and…
love
of life.

As I let the grief settle into more familiar
feelings of anger, there was something new and different… something stronger in
that anger. Being angry for the death of a stranger would make anyone want to
kill the monsters responsible, but anger drawn out of the loss of a friend, a
sister, was a much deadlier weapon. Holly was the only family I knew, and I
have never felt more fire, more rage than I did at his moment. Until my phone
rang.

Expecting it to be Gavin calling me back, I
yanked it out of my pocket and seeing the name on the screen knocked the wind
out of me. It read “Holly’s cell” and a fresh wave of rage left me speechless.
When I answered it, there was a brief moment of silence before he spoke.

“Before you jump into revenge mode, I want
you to know that it’s not over. Your little friend was just an attention
getter. Actually, she was payback for burning down my buildings and putting a
dent in my business.”

I couldn’t believe he had the balls to rub
it in my face, and suddenly, I found my voice. “My previous threat still stands
you son of a bitch.”

“Don’t be so hasty, doll. I told you I wasn’t
finished yet. Holly isn’t the only one in your life you’d die to protect.”

My heart sank, and everything went black
around me. I nearly passed out, but Gavin’s face flashed in my mind again.
Shane had him. He was in trouble, and I couldn’t lose him for good, too. Since
he had come into my life, I never had pictured being without him. Not really.
And I couldn’t do it now. I wouldn’t. Gavin was the strongest vampire I knew,
but Shane was now strong, too, and he wanted Gavin’s blood to be even stronger.
If he hadn’t drank Gavin’s blood yet, there might still be time to save him. I
had to save him, not out of guilt, but something much, much deeper than that.

“Do I have your attention, now, darling?” he
taunted.

There was a lump in my throat, and I couldn’t
speak.

“Good,” he said. “Because I want you to know
this all started with your boyfriend, and now it’s going to end with him. When
I saw his… abilities for the first time, I racked my brain trying to figure out
how he could be so strong. The first time I saw him was when he killed your
mother. I was in the area, and a pregnant woman drew a lot of vampire
attention. Unfortunately, he got there first,” he paused. I flinched at the way
he so casually talked about stalking and wanting to kill my mother, but it only
made me angrier.

“I saw his reaction to drinking your
mother’s blood, your blood, and watched with fascination as he fought off
several more vampires driven crazy by the scent of blood. I nearly joined them
in their bloodlust, but after seeing his strength, I thought twice. I couldn’t
shake the thought that he looked like he had been burned after drinking from
your mother, but I didn’t understand until I found out you weren’t exactly
human. I knew it had something to do with the blood, but as I watched him drive
away with her, it clicked. Vampire blood made him stronger. It had to have
been, but your mother wasn’t a vampire, so I suspected it was you. I found out
you had lived, a real miracle baby. Huh,” he mused.

“I studied it for years to validate that
theory, but I had to see you for myself to know for sure. When I heard about
the girl with inhuman strength, I knew I was right. But it wasn’t just you. He
had to have been drinking vampire blood for a while to get as strong as he was.
I never could figure out exactly how to do it, because all the texts say it
could be fatal for a vampire to drink another’s blood, taking in their death,
and all that. I even approached West at one point begging for his secret, but
he brushed me off like I was crazy. He’s always been a bit of a loner, that
one. If I had that much power, though, I would be too.

“Finally, I got desperate and fed off a
vampire one night. It nearly burned me from the inside out, but I healed
quickly. I tried again and again with similar results, but some vampires were a
little spicier than others. Eventually, I learned that it was the older ones
that burned more, but with growing strength it got easier. Then, I devised my
little plan, acquiring places for my drug labs. I thought an older vampire
would need a little sedative before I tried taking their blood. It would have
been much more difficult if I tried to take on stronger vampires without my
drug ring. And then you came along and threatened to fuck everything up. But I
had to stay close to you, because you were close to your sire. And you came in
handy when it came to acquiring my many properties. When you started getting in
the way, I had to distract you.”

“By killing people in my life?!” I shouted.

“It obviously didn’t work, because you still
didn’t get the message, and when you got too close, I had to set you up for
murder. I thought it would keep you off my back if you were a wanted fugitive.
But then, you almost ended up in jail, and I still needed you,” he said.

“So that’s why you helped me get away.
That’s why you put that guy up to confessing to those murders,” I said.

“You led me straight to the assassins that
were after you. Like I said, I still needed you. I need you now.”

“Killing my best friend is not a way to get
on my good side, and it’s especially not any way to get me to do you any
favors,” I spat.

“No, but it does make you more compliant.
And if you want to save your boyfriend, you’ll do what I say.”

“How do I even know you have him?” I asked
desperately. I had a gut feeling that he did.

“Come on, Lucy. No faith.” There was a
muffled shuffling sound, and I heard Shane speaking from a distance. “Hey, your
girlfriend wants to talk to you,” he yelled.

There was a wheezing sound and then, I heard
his voice, “Lucy?” He sounded almost confused, scared. I couldn’t pin down his
feelings. My heart twisted painfully, wringing out buried emotions I couldn’t
hide anymore.

A moment later, Shane’s voice came through
on the other line, loud and clear. “Satisfied?”

“What did you do to him?” I asked, my voice
hitching higher with terror.

“He’s so high right now, he doesn’t even
know what’s going on. He’s fine, but he won’t be for long. Tick-tock, Lucy.
What’s it going to be?”

“What do you want from me?” I asked
compliantly. To my dismay, I was ready to do anything he wanted.

“I want you,” he paused, giving his
statement finality, and I wondered what he meant. He took another breath, and
continued, “I want you to meet me at the old biotech lab on the outside of
town. You know the one. It was the first of my properties you destroyed. I’ll
exchange West for you.”

“What the fuck do you want with me?”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I want the First,
but you, of all people, can draw them out. They want you dead, so I’d say you
would make for some pretty good bait.” There was an edge in his voice, but all
I could think about was Gavin. He saved my life so many times, and I owed it to
him to do everything I could to save him.

“Fine,” I said, clipped.

“See you there, baby,” he said just before
the line went dead.

With pure determination and anger driving
me, I set off toward the old biotech lab. As I ran, I had to slow down. I got a
piercing headache along with the feeling that I shouldn’t go. It wasn’t my
feelings, though. Gavin was still lucid enough to convey his fear for my
safety. I smiled to know he was still with me and then pushed through the pain
and throbbing temples to pick up my pace. I wasn’t losing him, too. He had to
understand that. I tried to send him those feelings back, but I wasn’t exactly
sure how that whole maker-protégé thing worked.

The lot where the lab used to stand was just
a few hundred yards ahead of me now. It was completely barren, which made me
feel bad, because I knew with biochemical accidents, they would have had to bring
HAZMAT teams in to clean it up.

My pace slowed. It was too empty. Too quiet.
Where was he?

When I got closer, I felt the nausea rising.
Another feeling crept its way into the pit of my stomach, an uneasiness that
was telling me something wasn’t right. I stood staring at nothing but a vast
open space. Why would Shane hide if he was expecting me? I sensed more than one
vampire, but I definitely did not get that familiar feeling that told me Gavin
was near.

This was a trap, and I ran right into it.
But why set me up when I was willing to give myself up, when he already had the
only leverage he could use to bargain with me?

He never intended to set Gavin free. He
wanted his blood. So he sent me on a wild goose chase. Something else was
nagging at the back of my mind, but I was out of time to put all the puzzle
pieces together. With the sensation of vampires closing in on me, I took one
last fleeting look around and turned on my heel to run as fast as I could. I
didn’t think I could handle another one of Shane’s traps at the moment.

I sliced through the cold dead air, breaking
the calmness of the atmosphere around me as I passed. The draft created in my
wake blew loose snow off dumpsters and parked cars. Without looking back, I
imagined swirling snow dust behind me that stirred and eventually settled back
into its rightful place in the silent stillness of the night. My tracks would
eventually be the only evidence I was here, not that the vampires on my trail
needed that to find me.

I felt them gaining on me. How was that
possible? I was going my top speed, which was faster than most vampires, and my
lungs burned as I pushed harder and harder.

Unless… Oh no
. These were no ordinary
vamps. They had to be assassins. Shane didn’t just want me out of the way. He
wanted me dead.

I came to an alley that was blocked in the
middle by a fence. When I jumped the fence in one smooth motion, I came down on
the other side only to come face to face with a very old seeming vampire. His
skin was extra white, but instead of showing signs of age like humans do,
vampires got more inhuman looking. When humans age, they collect scars and
wrinkles and other signs of living. Older vamps seem to be extra smooth and
extra pale with a sort of otherworldly appearance.

This guy had an effervescent glow about his
skin but wore an expression that was devoid of life. There would be no mistaking
him for human. The black eyes also gave him away. By looking at him, he seemed
like he would be in his upper teens or early twenties, but it was hard to
pinpoint. His expression was hard and lacked true emotion, and when he looked
at me, I felt chills. Then, I felt his cold hand grasping my neck. He lifted me
up against the fence, crushing my larynx as he drug me against the chain link.
I wasn’t used to a lot of small talk from assassins. In my past encounters with
them, they haven’t been very chatty, so it surprised me when he spoke.

In his smooth, deep tone, he said, “Lucille
Masters. By order of the Elite, you have been found to be a threat to vampire
kind and therefore must meet the true end.” It sounded kind of like an old
western.

My consciousness began to wane, and I knew I
needed to make a move fast. I reached into my pocket and felt the tip of a
needle. Yes!

Quickly, I clenched my fist around the tube
of the syringe and readied my thumb overtop the thumb press. When I made my
move, I quickly pulled my hand free from my pocket and hooked my arm around
jamming the needle into the side of his neck with as much force as I had in me.
I pressed the holy water into his veins as fast as I could before he swatted my
hand away.

It was enough, because he roared in pain and
released his grip on my neck. I fell to the ground and skittered around him
while staying low out of his grip, but he recovered quickly. Before I could get
very far, he grabbed a handful of my coat from behind, stopping me dead in my
tracks. I felt myself lifted in the air and thrown with intense force. The next
thing I felt was the snapping of my bones against a brick wall. I fell to the
ground feeling the crack of my head against the pavement.

I struggled to my feet, slipping on a patch
of ice at the base of a gutter and backed away from the advancing vampire.
Pulling a spike from under my coat, I hurried back toward the mouth of the
alley, taking backward steps to keep an eye on him.

He advanced slowly, predatorily. A split
second too late, I felt the other vampire presence from above me. When I spun
to stake the other, I raised my arm, and midway through my strike, she clutched
my wrist, breaking a few bones in the process. With the damage done to my
wrist, I lost my grip on the spike, dropping it to the ground with a loud
clank. In a blur of motion I punched the female in the face, barely making an
impact. After I did that, I felt a sharp piercing pain in my lower back. It was
just below my heart. Everything slowed down then.

The male assassin had used my own stake and
drove it into my back, twisting it around and deeper into my body. Initial
shock prevented me from feeling anything, but once the pain had come back full
force, I cried out and nearly passed out from the searing agony.

Waves of throbbing pain pulsed through my
entire body like needles coursing through my veins. Every nerve ending in my
body ached. Before my muscles stopped working, I reached around, pulling the
spike from my back.

With all the strength I had left, I whipped
it around, driving it straight into the female’s unguarded heart. She managed a
quasi-human expression of surprise, and then her face blackened, eventually
bursting into flames then dying into nothing but ash.

My vision blurred slightly and I fell face
forward to the sidewalk. In attempt to catch myself, I tried putting my hands
out to break my fall, but they were weak, and my face hit the ground with the
force of a cement block being thrown directly at me. My senses were weak, and I
couldn’t tell if the other assassin was still there, but I didn’t think he was.
I heard distant screams.

As I lied there, coughing and bleeding out,
I felt changes in my body as it tried to heal. My senses were going in and out
with intensity. They would disappear completely then come back with such
intensity that I thought I would die from the shock alone. It was as if they
were too strong for my human body to handle. This was it. I was going to die
here. There was no coming back this time, no healing. As I lied there, a
thought had occurred to me, but it didn’t matter anymore. Shane had gotten what
he wanted.

Well, not yet.

I couldn’t think about him now. I wanted my
last thoughts to be peaceful. Gavin’s face popped into my mind. His gorgeous
flawless, well, almost flawless face. It was weird now, that I could picture
his face with such clarity, and even stranger that he had retained that human
like quality about his appearance, from the tiny white scar above his left
eyebrow, to the remnants of a five ‘o clock shadow. There was a ruggedness
about his face that was, well, sexy, but the point was that there was life in
his face that I never saw in vampires.

It was beautiful, perfect in its imperfections.
It was that face that I longed to see right now. Gavin was the only one who was
always on my side, from the very beginning. Deep down, I always knew it but
could never admit it, could never let myself believe there was anyone I could
count on, let alone a vampire. Now, I would never see that beautiful face
again, never tell him that I
trusted
him completely. But I would never
be able to repay him for saving me all those times, never be able to earn his
trust in return. He was the one, the only vampire to make me break both my
rules. I let my guard down with him and trusted him.

Truth and trust are two five letter words
that are so similar when you look at them at a glance, but they couldn’t be
more at odds when placed in my life. Truth was always something I longed for,
but when it came I no longer wished for it. Trust was something I never wanted,
never allowed in my life, but when it came I realized it was all I ever needed.

Truth no longer holds power or value when
there is trust. When you trust someone absolutely and unwaveringly, it no
longer matters what is true and untrue. Truths can be more dangerous than lies.
Trust has the power to eliminate any threats caused by those truths and lies.
If I had seen that sooner and trusted Gavin from the beginning then maybe our
relationship wouldn’t have been threatened. Maybe our lives wouldn’t have been
threatened.

All he ever wanted was to keep me safe, and
I let him down. I had failed everyone I cared about, including myself. And I
really did care about him. Although we were both always so wishy-washy when it
came to our feelings for one another and both highly irrational at times, I
knew he cared about me too. Now, he was going to die because I failed, not
because he was in my life but because I wasn’t strong enough to save him. This
felt different than the guilt I once harbored for getting the people in my life
killed. I felt guilty for pushing him out of my life. We were better together.
He was right. We needed each other.

Just before the lights began to fade and the
humanity in me dimmed, my internal atmosphere shifted. Oh no. Suddenly, I felt
something in me so ancient, buried deep within me, come to life. A heightened
sense of smell kicked in, but it wasn’t just heightened. There was something
different about the smell. Something that once smelled of rust and metal
shifted into something spicy and rich. It was very warm and inviting and
smelled better than fresh-baked cookies. My hearing began to change as well. My
own heartbeat came into focus as it faded, and a new thumping took its place as
I narrowed in on the sound coming from just a few feet from where I lied. My
eye lids felt so heavy I couldn’t lift them enough to see the source of the
other heartbeat, but my combined senses were telling me, or rather shouting at
me, that this was what I needed, what I craved.

“Are you okay?” a male voice asked. The
sound of it seemed so distant compared to his beating heart that was banging
like a drum, vibrating my eardrums.

No.
This couldn’t be happening. As my
body weakened, my instincts threatened to take over, but they weren’t my own
anymore. The monster inside was raging, dying to come out. A part of me wanted
to rip this guy’s throat out, taking all of his life into mine, making it my
own. This part terrified me. It was completely foreign and new. Another part of
me, the part I still recognized just wanted to die, taking the evil inside of
me to hell with me.

“Let me help you. I’m calling 911,” the
person said.

“Get away from me,” I whispered, struggling
to find my voice, using what little strength in me I had.

“What?” he said.

“Get away!” I screamed with every ounce of
remaining strength.

I felt him lean closer, too close. The
craving was so strong. It was painful and impossible to block out. I felt myself
slipping further and further into the darkness. The humanity inside me was
dying. I had just begun to open myself up to life, to happiness, and now it was
being taken away from me in a single instant. I couldn’t become this monster.
My worst nightmare was coming true, and in this very moment, everything in my
life up until now was being washed clean, and there was an intense rage boiling
deep down within. All I had in this moment was this newfound anger and pain,
and I wanted to kill. I didn’t care what or who. My instincts were screaming
KILL
!

I moved in an instant with a speed I had
never known, grabbing the man standing above me. I held him by his neck at an
arm’s length in front of me. I marveled at the fear in his eyes that caused a
change in his body. His adrenaline increased causing his heart to pound faster,
pumping a fresh flow of warm blood through his veins creating an enticing and
downright intoxicating smell that filled the air between us. His life was going
to taste so sweet, and his death was going to feel so good. My gums began to
feel like I had just visited the dentist. My K-9s were extending.

Faster than a striking cobra, I sank my
teeth into the flesh just above his carotid artery. As my new fangs broke
through the skin, puncturing the wall of the artery, I tasted the most
delicious mix of spicy sweetness I had ever tasted in my life.

He dropped his phone, and it clattered to
the sidewalk as the operator said that help was on the way. I felt the strength
coming back to my body, and the rest of my senses caught up to me. The focus
wasn’t just on the kill, but I began to hear distant sirens, birds rustling in
the trees across the street, and I smelled rotting garbage in the dumpsters
nearby.

What felt stranger, however, were the
foreign feelings I kept getting. There was an odd mixture of terror and
hopelessness. Something happened that allowed me to experience this man’s
emotional state, and it crept through me, jarring me from the moment. The rage
I had felt earlier began to subside, and the realization of what I was doing
sunk in. I dropped the man leaving him barely breathing crumpled on the ground.
What had I just done?