Where Loyalty Lies

Text copyright © 2012 Hannah Valentine

All Rights Reserved

To everyone who ever felt like they weren't good enough to achieve their dreams.

You are.

I promise.

Acknowledgements

I have so many people who I need to Thank.

Firstly and most importantly, my better half, Pete. You were the first person I trusted not only to read this book but to tell me if I should pursue with publishing it or not - a terrible position to be in. Your help didn't stop there though. You have encouraged me when my confidence was low and helped me break down every barrier that was in my way. The simple fact is that I would never have gotten this far without you.

My Mum, who loves this book. Getting your stamp of approval means more to me than you know.

My Dad, who always had words of advice. You understood how much this meant to me and you always let me finish work early so that I had time to do it.

My sister, Hayley and her lovely husband, Cook. The work I got done whilst staying in your home was invaluable. You two are living proof that hard work pays off, and are fantastic examples to me.

Katherine Lockwood. We say that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but we all do. You took a basic idea from me and produced something amazing. You gave my book not only a cover, but a soul.

Vicki Whittington and Francine Scott-Majer. You were part of the very small group I entrusted to read my book and not only did you read it and give me feedback, but your words of support spurred me on when I was really struggling.

Rhea Barnard and Gemma Armstrong . You went above and beyond the call of duty and proved that despite years apart, you are still fabulous friends to have. Your honesty made this book infinitely better.

Pat - My proofreader and copy editor. You put so much hard work into my book and polished it until it shined.

Without all of you this book wouldn't be what it is today.

Thank You.

I was on autopilot as the words of my prayer spilled out of my mouth. In reality, I was wondering exactly how much time I’d wasted saying these stupid words.

I suppose that, technically, all the ones I’d said up to the age of thirteen didn’t count because I’d actually believed in God and so had really meant them. So that left five years of saying this same prayer twice a day. That was approximately twenty minutes a week, which made one hour and twenty minutes a month, sixteen hours a year; so it worked out at... eighty hours? That couldn’t be right. Surely I couldn’t have wasted eighty whole hours, in the last five years, praying to a God I didn’t believe in, in the hope that the supposed “evil” in my soul would be removed. My train of thought was cut short as I came to the end of my prayer.

I opened my eyes and stood up beside my bed. Mary was standing in the doorway in her white nightgown that covered every inch of her skin from her neck to her feet. She couldn’t have looked more like the stereotypical, strict Christian woman that she was. Sadly, I was wearing a matching nightgown, but somehow it never made me look innocent or dutiful. From the harsh frown on Mary’s face as she looked me over, I thought she might have been thinking the same thing. If we were both honest, we would have to admit that I was never going to be one of God’s children. She suspected it and I knew it.

She gave me a curt nod. “Lights out now.”

Then she left, closing the door behind her. No cuddles or kisses, but that wasn’t really surprising as I hadn’t had an ounce of affection from Mary since... long before I could remember.

I climbed into bed, turned off my bedside lamp and counted to one hundred before turning it back on. I crept across the room and lifted one side of my dresser up; it was a perfect demonstration of one of the acts that made Mary think I contained evil. The dresser was solid oak and huge; I should not have been able to lift it.

I kicked my foot around until it found the little bundle that I kept hidden under the dresser, in the hollow under the bottom drawer. It was beyond pathetic that, at the age of eighteen, I still had to hide all my personal belongings where I knew nobody would find them, especially when they were such mundane, everyday items.

This particular bundle consisted of my own pyjamas and a book. I put on the shorts and tank top that I wore to bed and chucked the nightgown in a heap on the floor where it would be suitably wrinkled in the morning. Then I climbed into bed and flipped open my book. It was nothing racy or particularly sinful but, at the age of ten, my copy of
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
had been thrown away by Mary, as she’d thought the “hocus-pocus witchcraft” would corrupt me; now I didn’t take any chances.

This was my favourite part of the day; the couple of hours I had where I could be myself. With one hand, I pulled the hair-band off the bottom of the long sensible plait that Mary always insisted I wore, and ran my fingers through my hair until it fell in soft chocolate waves over my shoulders.

Just as I was coming to the end of a chapter, I heard a thud and a quiet cry. I strained my ears for further sounds but it was silent. Drumming my fingers on the cover of the book, I stared at my closed door. The noises had come from Mary’s bedroom, two rooms away down the hall. Once again, it wasn’t something I should have been able to do – to hear small noises from this distance. It may have been something innocent but I wouldn’t be able to relax until I knew that she hadn’t fallen or hurt herself, so with a sigh I threw the covers off me, stuffed my book under the pillow and threw the frumpy night gown on over the top of what I was already wearing.

Of course I wouldn’t be able to tell Mary that I’d heard her – I’d long since given up trying to talk to her about my strange differences – but, if I walked past her room on the pretence of going to the bathroom, it would be enough to put my mind at rest.

As I walked down the hall I quickly redid my plait. The first thing I noticed was that Mary’s bedroom door was open. She never slept with it open; I’d always imagined this was because she thought my sin was contagious and she might catch it if we were both to spend all night on the same floor of the house without two closed doors between us.

It was only when I winced in pain and looked down to see that my fists were clenched so tight that my nails had drawn blood in my palms, that I realised something was wrong. I couldn’t pinpoint how I knew it, but the air around me seemed thick with foreboding.

It was then that Mary’s praying filled my ears. It was no more than a whisper but the words were heavy with desperation.

I sucked in a breath and took the last few steps that put me at Mary’s door. Fear smacked into me as I took in the scene. Mary was cowering in the far corner of her room, her hands clasped in prayer and her eyes turned upwards to the ceiling. The reason for her frantic prayers was the figure standing a few feet in front of her. A gasp escaped from my mouth and that small noise was enough for the stranger to spin round to face me. He was wearing a black robe with a hood that hung so low that, in the darkness of the room, I could see nothing of his face. I could tell it was a man, though, because of his build. He had to be at least seven feet tall and had shoulders to match.

Anger boiled up in me. This guy had picked the wrong house. I didn’t care if he had the body of a rugby player, I was still stronger than he was. I charged, throwing my full weight at him, but he merely swiped at me with one hand, like I was no more threat than a fly, and that small movement sent me flying back to crash into the wall.

From a crumpled heap on the floor I gaped up at him in shock. He was stronger than me. That couldn’t be possible. His head was turned towards me but, as I still couldn’t see his face, I had no idea what expression he was wearing.

“Just you be a good little girl while I deal with her,” he said, inclining his head towards Mary. “Then it’s your turn.”

He turned back towards Mary and my brain seemed to split into a million pieces. Part of me was holding my body frozen in fear, another part was trying to prepare me for what I was about to witness. I was having a million thoughts a second and none of them were remotely helpful. Seeing the man reach towards Mary broke my temporary paralysis and I stood up and shouted. No coherent words came to mind, though, so all I could manage was a garbled noise. He turned and the light from Mary’s bedside lamp illuminated the bottom half of his face. I didn’t have time to come up with any sort of plan so instead I ran at him again. He smiled at me and I heard a whimper that must have come from my own mouth. What I saw brought me to a screeching halt, as I desperately windmilled my arms so I wouldn’t crash into him. He had fangs, real live fangs. I blinked stupidly.

A couple of seconds which seemed to last a lifetime passed before my senses kicked in.
He’s after me
, I thought,
Mary will be fine if I just get him away from her
, and I stopped staring and started running. I tore down the hall and got to the top of the stairs. I couldn’t hear him behind me. Looking back seemed like the most terrifying thing to do but I needed to make sure he was following. He was and he was moving so fast he looked more like a blur than a solid shape.

I hurtled down the stairs, taking four at a time but, before I reached the bottom, he’d grabbed me. I braced myself expecting to fall the rest of the way to the landing but instead I was pinned with my back against the wall. I opened my eyes and wished I hadn’t. His face was only inches from mine, his hood still covering his eyes so that all I could see was that mouth and those fangs. I stared in horror as he ran his tongue over them.

Scream
, my brain shouted at me,
for God’s sake scream
. We lived in a detached house and I had no idea if the neighbours would hear but it might scare him off, might make him falter.  

It took a couple of tries before I could remember how to, but then I opened my mouth and screamed as loud as I could. It was so surreal and yet all so horribly urgent.

His hands moved from my shoulders to my neck. In desperation I lashed out with all four of my limbs; I felt them connecting with him but they didn’t do any damage. My hand hit something hard on the wall and the tiny part of my mind that wasn’t consumed by terror, told me that it was the frame of one of the pictures that hung there.  I grabbed it and swung it forwards. The corner hit him straight in the face, his hold on me loosened for a split second and that was all I needed. I pulled away and ran down the final stairs. I knew I couldn’t leave the house; he might not follow me and then he’d be here with Mary. Instead I veered through the open doorway into the kitchen. The knife block was sitting on the counter and I quickly snatched up the two that I knew were the biggest and spun so that my back was to the wall.

He was standing in the doorway now. His hood had fallen down and I gripped the knives a little tighter. He was everything a murderous monster should be. His black hair was the standard short back and sides that you usually see on an army sergeant. His jaw was solid and square and the top of his right ear had been ripped clean off. His eyes were black, like they were all pupil and no iris, and they seemed like endless black holes in contrast to the whites of his eyes. If the eyes really were windows to the soul, then this guy’s soul was in hell.

He looked at the knives I was holding in my shaking hands and chuckled. “You don’t need to be scared. It will be over quickly.”

In a blur of movement he rushed at me. More out of instinct than skill I raised the knife in my right hand and felt it make contact with him and sink into his gut. The sensation and sound of the blade sliding into flesh was so disgusting that I felt bile rise in my throat.

He roared, grabbed my left wrist and squeezed so hard that I yelped and dropped the second knife. Then he pulled the first knife out of his stomach and flung it across the room where it sprayed a trail of blood across the wall and landed with a clatter.

Flashes of colour blotted out my vision as he slammed me back into the wall. When I could finally see straight, I saw his fangs only inches from my face.