Redemption (20 page)

~Bezalial~

For the first time ever I lied to Monroe. I didn’t point blank alter the truth, I just avoided answering her questions. And she had many.

“What happened to you this weekend? I came to the Abbey, but your aunt said you weren't there.Why didn’t you answer my calls or texts?” she asked me on the way to school.

I just looked over at her quietly. She looked at my face and fell silent. Maybe she saw the despair there, the same kind of grief, in a way, that I felt the day my parents had died. Maybe she saw the fear. Maybe she saw the creatures I imagined were inside me, the ones eating a hole in my stomach. My soul was laid bare. Whatever she saw, she didn’t question me anymore. I was pretty sure I was in shock.

“
What’s wrong with Dayton
?” was mixed with multiple “
Happy birthdays
” as we arrived at school and moved through the halls. I never heard the answer to the former, and I didn’t give thanks for the latter. I wasn’t feeling thankful.

“Dayton?” Conor called out sometime later that day.

I ran. Maybe I was a coward, but I couldn’t see him today. I couldn’t tell him or Monroe that they had been right. I should have left the Abbey. My stubbornness had caused this defiling. I was thinking like a victim now. I sat in the bathroom during fourth period. I couldn’t go to philosophy. I couldn’t handle both Mr. James and Conor in the same room knowing one had feelings for me and the other was involved in whatever ritual my aunt had initiated. I was admittedly afraid. The bell rang and the halls became crowded. I edged into them. Something brushed against me, and I looked up to see Jessie Grey’s face bobbing in the maelstrom of students. Her eyes flashed red. I stared harder. She vanished.

“Dayton!” Monroe called out, and I fought the bodies as I moved into the open doorway of our last period Spanish class. Monroe smiled, and I managed a lopsided grin.

“You okay?” she whispered.

I nodded before moving to my seat. We were in the last fifteen minutes of that same class listening to a tape we were supposed to be translating for extra credit when Monroe suddenly jabbed me from behind. I fought the urge to yelp as I looked over my shoulder with a glare.

“What?” I hissed.

She pointed out the window next to us.

“Hottie stage right,” she remarked in a dreamy whisper as I shifted to glance across the small expanse of green lawn to the woods beyond. One look and my heart practically stopped beating.

"You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!"
I thought to myself as I cringed inwardly at my own choice of words. I really needed to start cursing less. My aunt would have my hide. Ha! But then again she had drugged me and taken me out to a bar. After that, cursing seemed tame. The thought made me curse again. This time without regrets. If I had doubted any of last night’s events, the "hottie" just made them reality.

“Marcas,” I murmured as I looked at the tall, black-haired guy leaning casually against the trunk of an ancient oak tree.  His arms were crossed, pulling his black tee snugly against his broad chest as his full length leather jacket flapped gently against his dark jeans. His eyes met mine as his name slowly exited my lips, and I cringed. Last night slammed into me once again, making my head spin and every bruise on my body suddenly throbbed.

“Hot, huh?” Monroe asked cheerfully from behind me, and I tried to keep from wincing.

“Sure, I guess."

“You guess? Are you blind! I wonder what lucky girl he’s waiting on?” Monroe said with a smirk as she draped heart shaped fingers against her chest and began to thump.

“It’s fifth period. Has to be a senior,” Stefanie Davies suddenly stated from in front of us. “If only it were me."

 I rolled my eyes. What guy wouldn’t be thrilled to have Stefanie? She had a delegation of men following continuously in her blonde model-like wake. Maybe it was the body, but most of us figured it was because of her "daddy" and all his cash and cars. Amazing how much money you could make if you owned the oil rights to a property riddled with black gold.

“I don’t know. He looks dangerous,” Lita remarked from beside us.

I glanced around the room. How many girls had seen him? 

“I’ll be Lauren Bacall to his Humphrey Bogart,” Monroe said pointedly to Lita, and I shushed them before glancing once more out the window.

Was he here to kill me? He had certainly failed before. But it was daylight now.

Daylight! What did this mean for my whole "vampire" theory? Maybe I
had
dreamed up that part. That still didn’t explain why he was here.

“May I be excused?” I asked suddenly, my voice wavering as I stood up a little too quickly. It made me stumble, and Monroe reached up from behind me.

“What’s up with you today, Day?” she asked.

Mrs. Gomez peered up sleepily from behind her desk. I couldn’t stand it anymore! I stumbled again, and Mrs. Gomez’s eyes widened at the sight of my pale face and shaking hands. She quickly stood up and moved down the aisle.

“Are you okay, Senorita Blainey?”

“I think I need to see the nurse,” I whispered before heading toward the door.

I think she may have asked me if I needed help, may have even tried to send a student after me, but at this point, I had broken into a run. And I had no intention of getting caught.

“Come and get me, you freak!” I hissed loudly as I exited the school.

A few freshman students glanced at me wildly from the sidewalk in front, but I ignored them as I moved toward the parking lot.

“Freak?” a smooth, low voice asked calmly from behind me just as I reached my beat up old ’86 Pontiac. My hand froze on the door handle.

“You sure do know how to make an impression, Ms. Blainey. But you’re not the first one to call me a freak. Try again.”

“Murderer, stalker, monster,” I bit out coldly. Looking down at my white, clenched hand on the handle made it easier to stay calm and unaffected. As long as I didn’t give his voice a face, I could stay angry. Angry was better than afraid.

“Those aren’t new either,” he said before moving into my peripheral vision. I fought not to turn toward him.

“Quit pretending I’m the problem, Blainey!” he commented wryly and my face flushed red. Who did he think he was? How did he know who I was?

“You don’t know me!” I shouted before swinging open my door, finally looking at him fiercely as I scooted inside.

The light on his face made me pause. The pale skin I had thought belonged to him the night before was more tan than white, his eyes a deep blue so dark they shone like midnight, and he stood a good 12 inches taller than me. His hair was the only thing that remained the same, so black it could only be described as ebony. He didn’t seem pale or unhealthy in the least. If anything, he seemed flushed. My vampire theory was finally crushed even if I was fairly sure he had drunk some of my blood the night before. My face heated.

“But, au contraire, my sweet, I know you more than you or I would like. Go home. Talk to your aunt. But don’t trust any of them. I am not your enemy, but neither am I your friend,” Marcas spoke quickly, his gaze moving over me a moment before he turned away. “I’m not the one who threw us together. I like it even less than you do."

I cranked my noisy engine to drown him out. I didn’t trust anyone right now. And I didn’t know this man. I drew out my phone, texted Monroe to find out if she could hitch a ride with Conor, and then looked out the window. He was gone.

***

The three-level, grey stone Abbey looked ominous to me as I pulled up, and I cringed. Homes were supposed to look welcoming. So much for that.

“Here goes nothing,” I mumbled before yanking my keys out of the ignition and moving toward the door.

“Aunt Kyra!” I called out as I walked inside, keeping my voice level and confident. She didn’t answer.

I moved deeper into the Abbey. Most of the lights were off to save on power. The philosophy was, "If the room wasn’t in use, then the lights shouldn't be either."

“Aunt Kyra?”

A noise made me spin, and I looked toward the kitchens. What the hell?

“What’s this all supposed to mean, Damon?” I heard my aunt ask as I moved stealthily toward the door across from the refectory.

Damon? The recruiter? The one that looked like Marcas? Maybe coming home early wasn’t such a bad idea. Something told me she wasn’t discussing the weather, and I was more than ready to put an end to my questions.

“She’s been linked to him, Kyra. Now we wait,” Damon answered, and I shivered. I knew his voice now. And it scared me.

“You didn’t tell me it would change her!” my aunt insisted, her voice rising as I moved deeper into my corner.

Change? Someone moved, and a crash resounded against the wall where I crouched. I fought not to cry out.

“Do you doubt me, Kyra?” Damon asked, his voice low. My aunt gasped, as if her windpipe couldn’t take in enough air. I struggled to sit still.

“No,” she ground out, and a moment later I heard a thud before Aunt Ky began wheezing desperately, as if she was gasping in huge lung-fs of air. Had he tried choking her? Jesus!

“I don’t doubt you!” she coughed. “I’m just trying to understand—"

“Understand this. Without your niece, we would be nowhere right now.”

“But the link? You didn’t tell me it would be so strong!” Ky argued. She sounded desperate and afraid. “It could kill her!”

The kitchen grew quiet. My heart sped up. Kill?

“It’s a chance we have to take.” Damon said flatly.

Ky let out a shuddering breath. “Then it
could
kill her? You admit it!”

Damon didn’t answer. Ky hiccupped. I wasn’t sure if it was from the lack of oxygen or from real emotion.

“And it’s worth it?” she asked.

Still, Damon remained silent. After a moment, I heard Aunt Ky walk across the kitchen, her shoes thudding softly against the stone floor. The door leading outside creaked.

“This is what you meant by sacrifice,” she said meekly.

“It’s worth the risk, Kyra. It could end a war,” Damon finally said as he too moved across the kitchen. His stride was longer, and the sound his shoes made quieted as he moved outside.

“Why are you really helping us?” Aunt Kyra asked as I fought not to peer around the corner.

If Damon answered, I didn’t hear it. The door closed firmly behind him, and I heard the latch slide into place. Braving a peek around the doorway, I saw Aunt Ky slide down the wood of the door wearily before hitting the floor, her head coming to rest in her hands. My mind played back the conversation, and I moved to stand in the empty entryway. The stainless steel kitchen prep table lay on its side on the floor, and I focused on it a moment in silence.

The word
sacrifice
played silently through my head, and I suddenly felt a wave of nausea sweep over me. It took everything I had not to puke. Swallowing the bile working its way up into my throat, I forced myself to face the defeated woman on the floor.

“What have you done?” I asked her quietly, the question making its way through the room like an arrow. It found its mark, and Kyra looked up quickly. Shadows haunted her eyes and her hair stood up haphazardly. Around her neck, bruises were forming. My eyes widened.

“Dayton,” Kyra whispered as she pushed herself off the floor.

I backed away slightly. “You said we needed to talk."

Aunt Kyra sighed and bent to pick up the table. I helped her.

“Who’s Damon?” I asked her as she reached for one of the kitchen chairs.

She looked up at me and handed me the chair.

“A Demon,” she murmured as she sat down on one side of the table.

My heart stopped. I knew without a doubt she was serious.  I thought back to Amber’s room the night before my birthday. Amber had mentioned Demons. But she had talked about protecting people against Demons, not working with them. I wasn’t sure what was real anymore.

“Please sit, Dayton,” Ky begged.

I watched her a moment, her eyes staring up into mine, and I realized she was scared. This didn’t comfort me. But I sat.

“I don’t understand."

My back was rigid against the wooden chair. Relaxing just didn’t feel the right thing to do. It felt like relenting, and I was scared of what I’d be relenting to.

“He’s a Demon,” Aunt Kyra repeated.

I stared. I
got
that much. It suddenly made sense why Marcas had been able to walk around in the daylight. He wasn't a vampire. What I didn't get was . . .

“What the hell?” I cried as Ky looked at me with narrowed eyes.

I wasn’t apologizing for my language. What a joke!

 “I know you probably find that hard to believe. Your sister did too at first."

 She thought I was upset by the revelation. I almost laughed. It
wasn't
hard to believe. If I had thought it was, I didn’t after sharing my blood with one. At least I knew what they were now.  Damon and Marcas. Demons. They looked identical except for the scar. What I found hard to believe was the Abbess cozying up to one.