Shades of Red

by T L Christianson

  “Excuse me, I didn’t mean to bother you.” I stepped sideways again.

  She laughed and grabbed my hair roughly in her palm, leaning in to sniff me. “You smell like a human.”

  “Well, I'm not.” I twisted away and knocked her hand from my hair.

  I winced when I saw that she'd taken a clump of my hair. I stood up to my full height, even though she towered over me.

  “Don’t mess with me.” I pursed my mouth and folded my arms.

  Her humor seemed to fade a little, and she advanced toward me.

  “Your maker should’ve known not to turn a child.” She sniffed and scratched her dirty neck.

  I didn’t acknowledge her insult but focused instead on the narrow window out into the hall. I could see the dark-haired officer coming back. The skinny blonde kept moving toward me. Before I knew it, she’d reached for me, scratching deep into my back with her nails.

  “Owww!” I screamed, and she came for me again.

  “Nobody disrespects me like that, bitch!” she yelled, but my jujitsu training kicked in. I used her height and weight against her, allowing her momentum to lay her out on the ground.

  Jumping up from the floor, I was ready for her to attack me again when the door buzzed open.

  The guard entered, and my attacker pulled herself from the ground, eying me malevolently. She pouted before slithering into the shadows of the cell.

  I hoped that I’d be out of here soon.

  I swallowed and stepped up to the bars again. The officer was looking at me and waited for the buzzer to open the jail door.

  Escorting me out, he handcuffed me. I followed him into a small room with a two-way mirror on one wall. I sat down and allowed the guard to clip me to the table.

  Sighing, I felt despair wash over me. This place was no joke. They were vampires dealing with monsters.

  Left in the interrogation room for a long time, it was hard to get comfortable with my wrists cuffed to the table. I shifted uneasily until finding a relatively comfortable position by resting my head on my arm.

  The wounds on my back itched, and occasionally drops of my blood would slide down my side from the scratch. It would heal.

  Emotionally, I was exhausted.

  I was going to have to confess everything to Owen. How could he love me after what I had done? Had I manipulated him? Had I destroyed the one thing in my life that I had ever honestly had that was good? No, I couldn’t believe that.

  I wasn’t sure, and that bothered me.

  I thought back to the times Owen had decided to spend time with me, instead of working. Or the times when he came to the schoolroom on his breaks to chat or check on the kids.

  Had I made him do that?

  I ran the events in my mind and knew that we’d fallen in love before I began giving him my blood, but would he believe that? I wasn’t sure.

  I didn’t know how Owen was going to respond.

  To be honest, I’d been living without a rule book for a long time. I made do when I didn’t know what to do and got by through either grit or most likely just plain dumb luck.

  “Giving a human blood bonds them to you. It takes away their free will.”

  Shivering, I thought about what I had done.

  How could I not have known?

  Was I evil?

  I took blood from innocent, defenseless people. Maybe I deserved to be here, in jail.

  Closing my eyes, I felt my face burn with shame and guilt.

  My mind churned to a dark place, racing, knowing I had created this mess for myself.

  I was a rat in a maze.

  But I was a survivor. I’d have to figure out how to get out of here on my own if need be. If I was going to lose Owen, I would lose him and then I’d go on. This was nothing new, he’d never been mine to keep from the beginning.

  But the engagement ring had turned my mind upside down. It’d given me hope that I had no right to.

  Damn that ring. I wish I’d never known about it.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  My mind spiraled back to the summer of 2006 and my beloved Isabel.

  When I was married, Isa was hired to be my maid. She liked that I spoke French, and as our relationship grew, so did her English.

  She kept my secret for almost twenty years, bringing me blood from the butcher in the local village. She told him that she made ‘Boudin noir’ every week because it reminded her of home.

  It wasn’t until we had run away together, that our friendship really began to deepen. We’d become equals and shared everything.

  When we left England, we bought a house in California. I sold my silver and some jewelry to buy it. I loved that old house. It was one-story, white with green shutters and a picket fence.

  A homeless man would come to our back door, and Isa would feed him in the dining room before sending him away with a warm roll wrapped in a napkin. She’d take care of neighborhood children, feeding them, and giving them a grape soda when they came by to chat.

  She’d seen the kids grow up and have children of their own. She’d continued to give a grape soda to the kids and a beer to adults.

  Isa drank precisely one beer per day and smoked until her eighties when we both decided to give it up.

  She’d lived in the same house since we bought it, until she died.

  That last summer, she was 108 years old.

  I’d given her my blood all her life, especially when she got older.

  My blood had made her as healthy as a young woman until the very end. She tended her garden, cleaned her house, and sewed her own clothing up until the last year of her life.

  Isabel was the hardest working person I’d ever met.

  She’d been all fire and vinegar.

  Fighting had been like a sport to her, and I couldn’t imagine that I had manipulated or taken away any of her free will.

  Over the course of the last few months, Isa began to slip away.

  I’d taken her to the doctor, but they’d found nothing wrong. They told me, “Your grandmother’s just old. She’s nearing the end.”

  I brushed out her long silver hair and rubbed lotion into her wrinkly and frail arms. That last year, she went from walking to church daily to attend six o’clock mass, to being bed-ridden.

  We watched Firefly on my computer, and she called Wi-Fi ‘magic.’

  I thought it was magic too and told her that.

  She told me that I had to live long enough to see people living in space, and all I could do was cry.

  Near the end, I had tried to turn her.

  I failed.

  She’d been too strong to turn and too old to really be healed.

  At the beginning of June, the hospice nurse said that she had only a few days to live.

  She lived until August.

  I’d known she had passed as soon as I awoke that summer morning.

  The slow, weak thud of her heart that I had lived with for so long was suddenly gone.

  Running to her room, I found her still warm.

  I began CPR, and in my haste and fear, I cracked a few of her ribs.

  Between sets of CPR, I bit my wrist and held it to her lips.

  I went on like this for over an hour, and even when I knew she was gone, I persisted.

  I don’t know what finally made me stop, but eventually, I did.

  I felt as if I was on that window ledge of the asylum again.

  Alone.

  I screamed and cried and cursed a God who would make me outlive someone as good and kind as Isabel.

  My nose ran, and I sat there until the realization that her body was cooling sent me into action.

  I brought the basin of warm water and began by washing her hair, massaging her scalp, and then rinsing the bubbles out. I carefully brushed her locks into a fan on her pillow.

  Taking care of Isa had never been a chore.

  We took care of each other.

  It was true, she had become my mother and my grandmother. She had been the person that I
’d wanted to be.

  My lip trembled, and I remembered catching a glance of myself in her bedroom mirror, my face swollen and red, but I was the same as the day we’d met.

  After she’d died, I cried for days, but cleaning her body, and dressing her in her favorite Sunday dress, nylons, and pumps helped me grieve.

  She would have wanted that.

  I kissed her face over and over before carefully applying her makeup.

  I was lost, in time and place, in the ancient ritual of washing a loved one.

  Knowing what my blood may have done, I wondered if Isa had really loved me. All those times she cared for me, buying blood from the butcher and gardening and… I sobbed in the pale green-walled interrogation room. Had she wanted something else? Had I somehow made her into my forced companion?

  I’d been scratching the surface of the table with my nail and noticed I had made a shallow trough.

  “No,” I spat out. I wouldn’t accept it.

  Two parts of my mind warred.

  One part argued that this was crazy!

  There was no way I could have influenced Isabel and Owen.

  The other part told me that I was a monster and didn’t want to admit that I had done wrong.

  Do evil people know they’re evil, or do they think they’re doing the right thing?

  Yeah, evil people don’t think they’re evil.

  I think.

  Maybe.

  I felt crazy. How could I take away someone’s autonomy without knowing I was doing it? It was hogwash.

  I kept going back and forth, but in the end, I came to the realization that it was the same as not knowing the speed limit and getting pulled over by the cops. I was in the wrong, and I knew it, but I didn’t want to accept the implications.

  After sitting in that room, feeling like I was going crazy, a woman entered and sat down across from me.

  I realized it was Hazel Richards, the Moroi that I had met at the house.

  I looked up at the well-coifed vampire, who looked at me strangely.

  “I have to talk to Owen,” I told her.

  Her look was regretful. “Emilie… you can’t see him.” She sighed, and I searched her face. “He’s asked me to represent you when you face the Chief Justice.” I furrowed my brow, and she continued, “I’m an attorney.” I knew I should be grateful for having someone in my corner.

  “Can you explain to me what I’m being accused of?”

  “Well,” she looked at her tablet, “they’re charging you with basically two things, even though there are several charges. First off, you have two charges for human manipulation. This is for giving your blood to Owen. Second, there are three charges of treason and terrorism. Those are actually pretty bad. They have a cell phone as evidence with your finger prints on it. Data from the device is very damaging, I’m afraid.”

  Martin had followed me! I thought I was being paranoid, but he’d been there. I’d heard him. He’d retrieved the mobile from the rubbish bins.

  I looked down at my fingernails. This was bad. “So, what happens now?”

  “You tell me your side of the story, and I’ll try to get you leniency.” She pursed her lips then tried to smile. “From everything Owen’s told me, I don’t think you’re a terrorist.”

  I tried to smile, my lashes still wet from crying.

  “Everything you tell me is attorney-client privilege. Explain the blood first.” She sat there, eyes wide, her smooth straight dark hair framing her face and curling on her shoulder.

  “Aren’t you going to record me or something?”

  She tapped her temple and smiled. “You are remarkably human-like.” Then she frowned. “I think I’m going to ask for you to be in solitary for your own safety.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that, but I was willing to trust Hazel… for now.

  “Okay, the blood.” I licked my lips and shook my head to get my hair out of my face. “I honestly never meant to hurt him. He was so tired and stressed. He was working such long hours. I thought that if I gave him my blood, he would feel better, and maybe eat more.” I bit my lip. “I had no idea it would affect him in any other way.”

  “I believe you, and I think that combined with what Dr. Bennett says, we can get that charge dropped.”

  “You spoke to him? Is he mad?” I was desperate to talk to Owen, but I wanted to tell him myself.

  “I don’t know if he’s mad or not, but he doesn’t want to press charges.” She waved her manicured hand around. “This is actually a lot more common than you think.” I furrowed my brows, and she laughed. “Human-Moroi relationships and shared blood.” Something flashed through Hazel’s expression. “You haven’t drunk from him though?” I startled, and she watched me, looking for what, I didn’t know. “Interesting.”

  “Is that normal? Moroi and humans drinking each other’s blood?”

  She nodded. “Honestly, it’s what many of us do.”

  “Then tell me, did I really take away Owen’s free will?”

  Her tinkling laugh sounded again, and she shook her head. “No, not on its own. It’s kind of like speeding. Just because you’re speeding doesn’t mean that you’re going to cause an accident, but you could. It’s a lot easier to cross into forcing a human’s will if they’ve been drinking your blood.”

  My eyes filled with tears of relief this time, and I squeezed them shut. “Rhoda Black basically told me I’d taken away Owen’s free will.” I was so mad, I banged my cuffed hands against the table. When I felt mad, sad, happy, anything, I cried, but I hated it more at this moment because I was sick of being weak. Hazel already thought I couldn’t handle Moroi jail.

  Before I knew what was happening, I felt a warm handkerchief press against my face. I tried to reach up before I remembered my hands were chained to the table. “Thank you,” I said with as much calm and dignity as I could muster.

  She let out a long sigh. “Rhoda’s a bureaucrat.” Her lips pressed together in anger. “You need more information about being Moroi.” She pulled out the sack Rhoda had initially given me. “I brought this for you… reading material.”

  I opened the bag and saw my worn copy of Pride and Prejudice was there. “Owen gave me that to give to you.”

  I squinted my eyes. “What? How?”

  “He’s a lot more observant than you think.” She pondered me for a moment. “Owen is a lot like us…. Hmm…” She flipped through her tablet.

  I touched the surface of the old book and thought about what she said.

  After a moment, she addressed me again. “As far as the cell phone, begin at the beginning. Where did you get it, who gave it to you… etc.?”

  I spoke to her about how I was kidnapped in New York after getting off the bus from LaGuardia to catch the subway. She took notes on her tablet along with asking questions about specific people.

  “So, once Owen had security, you destroyed the phone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that fits the timeline. I’ll talk to Stephen, the prosecutor on your case. I think that in exchange for some information and testimony, we may be able to get you a deal.” Her brown eyes pierced me. “Don’t count on it, but I still think there’s an excellent chance that you’re looking at time spent and immunity for your testimony against Iona, Aiden, and Dimitri. They’re from the Scotts clan.”

  I licked my lips. “So, what happens if I don’t get immunity? What am I looking at? I’m not afraid of prison, I just worry about Owen.”

  She shook her head, her eyes darting away from me. “We don’t really put people in prison. You’ll remain here until you’re sentenced, but what happens to criminal offenders in Moroi Society is very severe compared to the American modern justice system.”

  “What do they do?” I whispered.

  “There are two punishments. Death by beheading, or entombment. If worse comes to worse, I’m counting on entombment, but if for some reason you aren’t telling me the truth about everything, you could still be charged with treason, whi
ch is immediate beheading and cremation.”

  “What is entombment?” I chewed my lower lip.

  “It’s where a Moroi is drained of blood, placed in a coffin, and entombed in a secret location known only by the Global Council.”

  “For how long?”

  “Usually in increments of fifty years.” She pursed her lips. “I’m sorry.” We both knew Owen could be dead by then, his children that I loved wouldn’t even remember me.

  I placed my forehead on the table and tried to breathe.

  I knew he would age and die someday, I just wanted to be there with him.

  “Is there anything I can do? Do you want me to find your maker?” Her brown eyes were soft.

  “Actually, yes. Can you find what happened to my husband? Alexander Roberts.” If I were going to die, I should know what became of him.

  Instead of being taken elsewhere, I was processed there in the Chronos building. My fingerprints and DNA were taken before I’d been placed in a solitary cell. One bed, a toilet, sink, and desk occupied the space. By Moroi law, I had to give a saliva sample for the Moroi government to have my DNA on file. Apparently, when a human was changed into a vampire, part of their DNA was changed, and the Moroi can determine the vampire’s lineage.

  No one was let go after being charged by Chronos, and all were kept in the detention center until their trial. I’m not sure if this was Moroi efficiency or patience. Either way, I had a court date for this Friday.

  I still haven’t been able to see Owen, but I could smell him on my leather-bound book. He must have placed it next to his skin at some time, maybe under his shirt. He must’ve known that I could smell him on it.

  The pamphlets are a joke. Most of the information I already knew, except it was nice to know there were professional blood deliveries in major cities. Although, that wouldn’t help me in Durango.

  Hazel had eased my fears about all the blood I’d given Isa and Owen. I knew that I hadn’t manipulated the people I loved. Heck, if I thought I could manipulate anyone, I would’ve done it to Alexander. Except I didn't know how to compel people back then.

  Having accessed the UK online database, Hazel was getting answers for me. Yeah, Alexander was arrogant, insensitive, and narcissistic, but he’d been my husband, and a part of me loved him even after his betrayal. Finding his wife drank blood couldn’t have been easy. I could understand his reaction. If this thing hadn’t happened to me, I would’ve thought that the entire vampire thing was insane also.