“Then you’re doing better than me. I’ve missed you.” Sean finally glanced up, but once our eyes met, he dropped them again. “I hated what you were doing to yourself. But I also hate not having you in my life.”
“You can’t have it both ways.” I didn’t want to deal with this right now. I had so many other things on my mind. To be honest, I hadn’t even thought about him in weeks. I’d been so preoccupied with all the new monsters in the world, that the collapse of our high school relationship just seemed trivial.
“What are you going to do now?” Sean asked after another long pause.
“You mean for work?” I asked, and he nodded. “I don’t know, but I’m not going to worry about it right now. Maybe I’ll just take the rest of the school year off. Get through finals and graduation.”
“Do you know where you’re going next year yet?”
“I don’t have all the responses back yet, but whatever I choose, I’ll stay local.” I couldn’t leave Becca and had never told anyone about her ghost, not even Sean.
“I see. So, we’ll be a continent apart.”
“A fresh start.”
“Yeah; I guess so,” he said, sounding quite emotional about the idea. We’d talked about going to the East Coast together, but I knew I was never going to follow through with it. I never intended to show my acceptance to Penn to anyone.
After another awkward silence, Sean asked, “How are you getting home? Do you want a ride?”
“I’ve got it covered,” I said. “But thanks for the offer.”
“Okay… well, I did what I came here to do. I should go.” Sean rose from this chair and simply stood there for a minute, like he was waiting for me to stop him, but I had no intention of doing that. When he realized the conversation truly was over, he said goodbye and left for the parking lot, not even stopping inside to say anything to Alexis.
I remained at the table a while, finishing my white mocha and people watching. For all I knew, some of them weren’t even people—or, not human, at least. I tried watching people I thought were weird or suspicious, but those were most likely the most human of us all. The supernatural creatures blended in with us—emulating the best of us. The most beautiful. The most refined. The most like what the rest of us regular people wanted to be.
When I got tired of trying to pick out the monsters from the crowd, I gazed down at the envelope that Sean had brought. I’d saved all the previous envelopes and letters like a roadmap of my journey. But now, I realized this journey was over and I didn’t need them anymore. I knew where my father was. I just needed to get initiated into the True North Society and I’d be taken to him. As Matthew had cryptically told me on our first meeting—my search was over.
I crumpled up the envelope and tossed it in the nearest trash can as I began my trek home.
35
Matthew
I’d hadn’t planned to go to an AA meeting that night, but the thirst was overwhelming, what with everything that had been going on. To me, meetings seemed like it must feel for all the other AA members to have to sit in a crowded bar—temptation was all around but the support was still helpful. I also needed to continually test my resolve, forcing me from the confines of my prison apartment. However, I spent the meeting standing in the back of the room by the refreshments, afraid of what I might accidentally do.
While the others shared their stories, I sipped on stale coffee. It sure wasn’t the “best damn coffee in the county” like they had at Fiona’s workplace, but it kept me occupied and my focus off drinking—well, other liquids.
I’d called Jezebel, my sponsor, to tell her I was coming that night, so she’d promised to make it too, though she’d be arriving late.
When she slipped into the sectioned multipurpose room of St. Paul’s activity building, she spotted me by the tables and came over.
“Did you make it?” she asked upon reaching me. There were no donuts that night, so she grabbed a lemon poppy seed muffin and a napkin.
“I did,” I said. “I’m still dry.”
“I’m proud of you,” she said, offering me a hug.
I reciprocated, but made it just fleeting and then took a few steps back—keeping my distance without making it look obvious.
“Ouch; you need to watch that strength,” she said, cracking her shoulders. “You’re a lot stronger than you look.”
“Oh… sorry,” I said. I hadn’t even realized I’d been so careless. I needed to focus. My compulsions didn’t control me—I controlled them. I poured myself another sour coffee.
All the stress revolving around Fiona and Mallory was making it so hard to think clearly. Maybe Ashley was right, and I shouldn’t be depriving myself of my true nature to remain at my best—my optimal performance. I certainly wasn’t at my best right now. However, I knew Ashley would not have made such a bold statement fifty years earlier. She’d been horrified by my true nature when I’d first met her, as were most humans. But there were those exceptions, who seemed to be growing in recent years—hence the expanding Vampire Nation—those willing to offer up their blood for pleasure, adventure, and asylum. Of course, they were always playing with fire since there was never a guarantee they wouldn’t be killed in the process.
“Are you going to sit or stand back here by yourself for the entire meeting? Jezebel asked.
“I’m not really in the mood for sitting,” I said.
“We’re all in this together. You don’t have to isolate yourself. You’re not alone.”
“I understand that,” I said. “And I’m here because of the support, which I’m more than grateful for. But I’d just rather stand. I’m too antsy to sit.”
“Fair enough,” she said. “Well, I’m gonna sit and I’ll save you a seat in case you decide to join us.”
As I continued to listen to stories from the other members, my phone buzzed in my pocket, so I fished it out and checked the screen.
It seems someone beat us to the punch, the text read.
I clicked to open the messages and found three pictures attached below the text from Jack.
Martin Harner. There’s not much left of him.
The first picture had been taken from the back of a dining room chair, positioned in front of a sunlit window. Wooden spikes were driven into the chair arms. The second picture faced the front of the chair, where the spikes could be seen better. The seat itself had multiple burn marks. On the cushion and surrounding floor were piles of ash, but no blood—his blood would have turned to ash with the rest of him once the sun finally killed him. The third image was a closeup of a framed picture, with the man we’d seen in the video clearly identifiable.
It’s possible this was his doing to someone else, but I doubt it. Continuing to investigate.
It would take one to two hours for direct sunlight to kill a vampire without sun serum or some other UV-reflecting agent. The more direct skin it touched, the faster it burned through our bodies. The chair had been brought to the window on purpose. The wooden stakes through his arms would have helped immobilize him. God knew what else had been done to him to keep him in that chair while the sun slowly cleansed him with fire.
This was the vampire who had caused Fiona’s accident, and there was a very good chance he had been tortured and murdered. I was positive he’d been working for Frederick, but if that was true, then who wanted to retaliate besides myself? In truth, the events could be completely unrelated. With everything Frederick had his hands in, the retaliation could have been for something else entirely.
This didn’t mean Fiona was safe—because if nothing else, I knew she never would be safe from Frederick—it just raised more questions.
Keep me posted, I texted back.
I took a deep breath and tried to bring my focus back to the meeting—to listening to the stories of everyone else’s demons, the internal battles everyone in this room was committed to fighting day in and day out. It would be so much easier to just stop fighting and give in to what we all truly wanted, but that wa
s why we focused on the battles and not the war; it was easy to lose perspective during the war—to lose focus.
This was how I proved I was not like the others. This was my penance for what I was and the terrible things I’d done over the decades. It wasn’t like I could just kill myself and rid the world of one more bloodthirsty vampire. My mission wasn’t complete yet. So, I would remain thirsty…
I didn’t know if I could manage it forever, until next year, or even ‘til next month. But I could at least manage it for that one day. That was my battle. The next day would be a new one.
36
Fiona
Matthew picked me up for another training session on Friday evening, and this time I allowed him to meet me at my apartment. It helped that Mom was working tonight.
I couldn’t seem to stop the flood of fear and longing as I climbed into the SUV next to him. His smile seemed forced, giving me the feeling he didn’t want to see me. I smoothed out my bangs and bit my lip as I focused my attention forward. Luckily, it was already dark outside, and once we were driving, our more telling features were masked by shadows.
“Please, tell me we’re doing something else tonight,” I said once we exited my complex.
“No fencing tonight,” he answered.
At first, I sighed in relief, but then began to wonder—obsessing about what that really meant. I wanted to ask him what awaited me, but since he wasn’t offering, I was afraid to find out. What could I be worse at than fencing? And then there was seeing Mallory again. The mere thought of her increased my blood pressure. My hands began to shake from sheer hatred.
We headed back to the headquarters building on the prison compound. I still didn’t know how the True North Society seemingly had this level of government access, but it was obvious that they had connections and money. Someday I’d hopefully find out just how far their reach extended.
Every few minutes, I stole a glance at Matthew, but he never seemed to notice—or maybe he did and simply didn’t want me to notice he was noticing! His face was so beautiful in the moonlight, glinting off his fair skin. I wanted to reach over and touch him, but like reaching out to touch a wild animal, I was afraid of getting bitten or worse.
When we reached the underground parking structure, he didn’t pay me any more attention, simply got out of the vehicle and expected me to follow. His jaw was tight, and his brows furrowed like he was fuming about something. I didn’t know if it was something I’d done and felt far too nervous to ask.
We took the elevator several floors up in silence, then went to a private office, which may have even been the same one I’d changed in before the candidate branding ceremony. I looked down at my left palm, at the bandage still covering it. I’d cleaned the scabbed cut that morning and replaced the bandages. The skin around it had been bright red and was still sore to the touch, but it was healing. Soon I would no longer need the bandage, and the line across my hand would be just another scar to add to the collection.
Matthew closed the door. The anguished and haunted look in his eyes was even more present now. I looked around for a new set of clothes for me to change into but didn’t see any. “What are we doing here?” I asked, turning back to him.
“Have a seat,” he said, pointing to the couch against the wall.
“Okay,” I said suspiciously and did as I was told. “I’m seated; now what? I’m the one all freaked out about continuing training with Mallory around and paranoid of what everyone here thinks of me, but you seem in an even worse condition than me. What’s going on?”
Matthew removed a capped syringe from his pants pocket. “I need to put you under again.”
“What? No. I thought we were past this.” The thought of being put to sleep again and having no idea where I’d wake up next was incredibly unnerving. “Please don’t.”
“It’s not my decision,” he said, removing the cap on the needle. “It’s coming directly from President Bolt. It’s the next step in your journey—that’s all I can tell you right now.”
“What’s going to happen to me?”
“President Bolt will tell you everything. I won’t let anything bad happen to you… I just want you to know that.”
I noticed his hand shaking as he held the syringe at his side. I was already afraid, but his own fear was contagious. I couldn’t image what would scare him—and didn’t want to.
“I—I trust you,” I said. I’d brought myself to say the words, but wasn’t sure if I truly believed them.
“Please try to remember that after President Bolt tells you what’s coming next,” he said, and before I even had a chance to response, he crossed the room in a flash and stuck the needle into my neck.
Within a second, I felt my body sinking into the couch… the room growing dark… and the cool lips of a vampire on my forehead as everything around me faded to blackness.
37
Fiona
I awoke on the glass floor with the brilliant image of the Earth below me, feeling like I was still in a dream. Maybe that’s what this whole True North experience had been—a dream I couldn’t seem to wake from? Maybe I never woke up from the car crash and was still lying in a hospital bed, trapped in this crazy alternate reality—some strange purgatory.
I didn’t know which timeline option I preferred.
As I sat up, I found Mallory seated a few yards away, gazing out of the glass walls into deep space. I had remembered the view being convincing, but seeing it again, I couldn’t think of a way that this was manufactured. It seemed so real—which brought my thoughts back to the purgatory possibility.
As the cloudiness of my head cleared, I realized there were two more people in the cylindrical glass room, but they were not the other two candidates. They were two women—one middle aged and the other a few decades her senior. They were both dressed in business slacks and buttoned-down blouses, both standing by the glass elevator, seemingly observing us.
“It seems you’re both finally awake,” the younger woman said, her voice sounding relatively familiar. She walked further into the open room and stood between Mallory and me. “I know you don’t know me by face, but you probably recognize my voice. As a quick refresher, my name is Janice Bolt, the president of the True North Society and the United World Coalition. And this is my colleague, Assemblywoman Degray, an esteemed member of the Assembly of Seven, which is the governing council of the True North Society.”
“Good evening, ladies,” Ashley said.
I caught Mallory glancing at me while Janice was talking. For once, she didn’t seem any more informed than I was, making her noticeably uneasy. But by the end of the introductions, Mallory had risen to her feet, doing her best to display the same power and confidence as she did in school. However, these were not women who were easily impressed or intimidated—that much was obvious.
“What’s going on?” Mallory asked in her usual demanding tone.
“I have brought you here to discuss your options,” Janice said. “It seems we have a problem with the two of you. And I am going to tell you how we resolve it and move forward.”
“You don’t understand—” Mallory started to say but was quickly cut off.
I thought it was best to remain quiet.
“I understand enough and we’re not here to place blame and debate responsibility. You both are here because a problem was presented to the Assembly. It has become apparent that you two are having extreme difficulty working together. I don’t think we’ve ever had candidates within the same class harboring this much animosity toward one another. Can you think of another example, Ashley?”
“Not in the past fifty years,” Ashley said. “But we also do not have many candidates with preexisting relationships coming into the program. But we can’t allow that to be an excuse.”
“I want to share my deep disappointment with the both of you. I’ll be honest, my initial judgment was to remove you from candidacy altogether. But both of you have very strong people backing you. The both of you are legacy c
andidates, so that is also taken into careful consideration.”
“What do you mean by legacy candidate?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t a completely stupid question.
“Someone with a family member who has gone through the candidacy program and been initiated into the Society,” Janice clarified.
“I apologize for any lashing out I may have done,” I said. “Mallory and I have had our differences over the years, but I should have remained focused on my training and not our rivalry.” I glanced over at Mallory to see if she’d add anything.
“I apologize as well,” she said, though the words rolled off her tongue like she was simply going through the motions. “I do not harbor any ill will toward Fiona and know I can do better going forward. Thank you for giving us this opportunity to continue on and learn from our mistakes.”
“The decision will be yours if you wish to continue, but it will be something you’ll have to confirm this evening before you leave. And once that decision is made, there will be no going back.”
“I confirm,” Mallory said. “I wish to continue.”
I was about to say the same, when Janice interjected. “Not so fast. You will have the opportunity to continue, but not until you’ve completed an additional task—and it will be the hardest thing you’ve ever done in your lives. Ashley, please explain to our candidates what will be required of them if they wish to continue with the True North Society.”
Ashley stepped forward. “How about the two of you standing next to each other? I don’t want to have to keep looking back and forth.”
Mallory took a few steps to the side, but made me come most of the way to her. She didn’t visibly scowl at our proximity, but I could feel the resentment she radiated.
“That’s better,” Ashley said. “It’s time you get used to each other’s company and working together, otherwise it will be a long, ugly road for you both.”
Angeles Vampire Page 18
