Dark Shadow

by Danielle Rose

  I sigh. “It happened weeks ago. It was before…before w-we lost them. And I didn’t tell you because I honestly didn’t believe it was true. It was weird, but my mind rationalized it to be just a nightmare, a figment of my imagination.”

  “You have to share these things with me, Ava,” Jasik says. “I can’t protect you if I don’t know what’s coming.”

  “I don’t need your protection, Jasik. Quite the contrary, actually, don’t you think? I faced him today, and I survived.”

  “Ava,” he says, his voice low, warning.

  I understand his unspoken words. I barely survived. Even worse, he survived too. But instead of admitting my faults, I play on what will undoubtedly be Jasik’s weakness, because in these moments, I’m far too petty.

  “I had another dream last night,” I say. “You didn’t just die this time, Jasik. You turned. Rogue.”

  Jasik doesn’t hide his shock. His eyes widen, his head jerks, his jaw falls slack. His reaction softens my heart and eases my nerves. Immediately, I feel like such a jerk for telling him right now, in the midst of a fight. But thankfully, he is as surprised as I was, and this only helps to solidify my feelings.

  Jasik would never willingly turn rogue.

  My vision was clearly influenced by my emotions. After weeks of watching him die, my imagination decided to join the game, and it doesn’t play fair.

  “I would never,” Jasik hisses, mirroring my own thoughts.

  But being the stubborn witch I am, I don’t relax, because even though I am able to easily convince myself that that scene was no vision, there is still a nagging part of me that wonders if it’s true. If Jasik wants me to be honest so we can talk about my visions, then I’ll speak up.

  “There seem to be a lot of impossible things happening in Darkhaven these days. Maybe this is one of them,” I argue, crossing my arms over my chest in defiance.

  “Ava, there has never been a case of a vampire turning rogue against his wishes. Never. It’s impossible.”

  “Magic makes the impossible possible, Jasik. I think you’re in denial,” I say.

  He snorts. “Listen to me. Please. It won’t happen. I promise.”

  I soften at his words. He isn’t promising he won’t turn rogue. He is promising me that he won’t leave. He won’t abandon me like all the others have.

  “I know. I believe you.”

  “You will need to detail all of this to Holland and describe the rogue to us. We need to know who we are looking for. I think it is fair to say we won’t be patrolling alone anymore either.”

  I nod. “Understandable.”

  Nearby, the shuffling of debris catches our attention. We both spin, facing the possible attacker, weapons ready. Twigs snap underweight, and the brush shifts as an opossum scurries from its hiding spot in search of food.

  Jasik and I remain so silent, so still, I am convinced the creature doesn’t even notice us. After all, we are predators. It is prey. While it should be aware of its surroundings, we have so many advantages to ensure the cycle of life. Everything about us invites it closer.

  I exhale sharply, easing the tension in my shoulders once I realize there isn’t a threat looming overhead, and the opossum is alerted, growling and hissing as it runs away.

  “We’ll find him, Ava,” Jasik says.

  “I know, but until then, we all need to be careful.”

  “We should go,” he says, his gaze still scanning the forest surrounding us, as if the wildlife is in cahoots with the rogues. “For all we know, he’s still out here, watching us even now.”

  I know he’s right. We must return to where it is safe—at our nest, among the other hunters—but I don’t move. Not yet. There is one more conversation he and I need to have while we’re alone, far away from eavesdroppers.

  “Are you upset that I left without telling you?” I ask, already knowing the answer. Why do I enjoy torturing myself with these honesty sessions?

  “I’m not upset,” Jasik says. “I just wish you would have told someone. You risk too much.”

  “Don’t you think it was time I rejoined patrols?” I counter. This is possibly the worst argument to make, considering there is a potentially vicious and powerful rogue vampire looking for me, but the words still escape.

  “Only if you are truly ready,” he says.

  I know where this conversation is going. He doesn’t trust that I am ready. With everything that has happened recently, and with the introduction to a new rogue vampire, I can’t blame him for thinking I should confine myself to the manor. But that is all I have done since our friends died. I can’t hide forever.

  “I am ready, Jasik,” I argue, tone firm. I need him to believe me even if I am internally questioning myself. But he doesn’t need to know that.

  “Do you even realize where you are right now?” he asks, gaze glued on me.

  I frown, confused, but he continues before I can speak.

  “Turn around, Ava,” he orders. “Look.”

  And that’s when I see it, where I am, how close I am to my former coven. I am a short walk away from the entrance to the backyard of my childhood home. I have hiked these woods most of my life. I know exactly where I am. I know how many steps it will take to get home from here, how I could hear my mother’s call from this exact spot if she were looking for me. But somehow, I didn’t realize where I was until he pointed it out, as if I were blinded by my own inner turmoil.

  “No,” I whisper. “I didn’t realize I was so close.”

  Mindlessly, I walk even closer, taking the steps one by one. My legs feel heavy, as if the earth is pulling me down. Does it also want me to stop? Before it can answer me, Jasik grabs my arm, halting me.

  “Don’t, Ava,” he says firmly. By his tone, I can tell how serious he is, and it is clear he has no intention of releasing me until I agree that returning home is a bad idea.

  I jerk free, angry. “Why? Why are you so hell-bent on keeping me away?”

  “It’s not safe,” he explains.

  “I’m sure the fire has been extinguished.” I don’t bother hiding my annoyance.

  “You have bigger things to fear than the fire,” he says. “The humans are investigating. You can’t become part of that.”

  “You think they would assume I set the fire?” I ask, shocked.

  He shakes his head, his eyes softening. “Last night, while you were…occupied, Malik and I overheard them.”

  “And?” I ask. “What did they say?”

  “And they assume the people who lived in that house perished in the fire.”

  “No one was there. My mother wasn’t home,” I say, still not connecting the dots.

  “You were supposed to be living there, Ava,” he says. “They don’t know you left. They don’t know your coven forced you out the night you were reborn as an immortal. If they believe you died in that fire and then you suddenly show up in town, the humans will ask too many questions. Questions you cannot answer without raising suspicion.”

  I don’t speak, but silently, I can admit his concerns are valid. It’s not like I could even be questioned. Maybe I could con my way into making them believe I was at a sleepover, but how will I hide my pale skin, my crimson eyes, my hunger? The moment they see me, they will know I’m not human.

  “Being even this close to the crime scene is too risky,” he continues. “For all we know, their investigators are patrolling the woods, searching the surrounding area for answers.”

  Jasik’s right. I left the manor as soon as the sun set, and only a couple of hours have passed since I began my patrol. The humans could still be working, still trying to determine what caused the fire, what lives it claimed.

  “I know. I’m sorry,” I whisper. “But I have to see. I have to—”

  “It’s too dangerous,” Jasik repeats, interrupting me.

  “Wouldn’t you go back?” I ask, irritated. Everyone in this nest seems too quick to judge me, but given the chance, every one of them would go back to save their f
amilies. “If this was your house, your family, wouldn’t you need to see?”

  He is silent. The seconds pass as he stares into my eyes. He’s looking for something, but all he will find there is defiance. Still, he knows I am right. If this were his childhood home, he would return, but he would take it a step further. He would insist on finding the person responsible. He would want answers. Most of all, he would want to locate his missing mother.

  “She is still missing, Jasik,” I say, reminding him of the most important part of this tragedy while desperately trying to keep my voice calm, even though a storm of emotions is raging within me. I am on the brink of running, but I stop myself. I try to remain grounded, rooted in place, because in the end, I need him. And I want his help.

  Going back won’t be easy. Seeing what remains will be a dagger to the gut. Even now, the blade is floating, and I must force it upon myself. I will need Jasik to withstand that pain. He has always been my anchor, and I need that weight now more than ever.

  He sighs sharply and runs a hand through his disheveled brown hair. I imagine he left the manor as soon as he discovered I was missing, not even taking the time to ready himself for a fight. Sure, he remembered to grab a weapon, but he’s still dressed in the joggers he wears to bed. His T-shirt is loose and wrinkled, and the grumbling I hear is his stomach, not mine.

  “Malik is going to kill me,” he says finally.

  “He wouldn’t dare,” I say. “He knows how lucky he is to have you.”

  The walk back to my mother’s house is quiet. The world is alight by the stars and the moon, but as I venture closer, everything seems to darken, as if even the earth fears what I may find. I know this should concern me—the elements rarely hide—but I never stop. Driven mindlessly toward the shadows, I am like a zombie in search of food.

  I cross the threshold and walk into the backyard. I stare in disbelief at what remains. The house my father built, board by board and brick by brick, is gone. The shell of what was once a happy home is all that lingers. I wonder if Mamá has already seen the damage. Does it eat away at her too?

  Jasik follows silently behind me, walking so close my skin crawls. I feel suffocated by his proximity, but the thought of losing his strength makes me uneasy. I know he is worried about me, about my reaction to what I am seeing. Maybe he thinks I will faint at the sight of everything I have lost, or maybe he fears I will commit a far worse act of vengeance against the people responsible. He might be right to worry, because even though I am consumed by the pain of seeing my childhood home in such disarray, a burning fury is raging within me. It is born and fueled by the very fire that stole my childhood.

  The flames had spread from the house and into the backyard, reaching all the way to the center, where our altar once was. Crafted from the trunk of a tree at least one hundred years old, the sacred space is gone. The relics we kept there were destroyed by its wrath.

  I crouch, scooping a handful of ash into my palm. I suck in a sharp breath, letting the remnants of such a powerful place fall through my fingers like sand. The milky sphere used to harness the moon’s power is shattered around me. My vision blurs, and when I squint, these particles become one again, but my hope is extinguished the moment I blink away my tears. These bits of iridescent crystal mock my anguish with their cruelty.

  I glance toward the house. From where I kneel, I can see straight through to the street out front. No one is there, the nosy humans of Darkhaven and the inspectors long gone. The world is dark, and Jasik and I are alone to deal with what remains.

  Staring into the front yard from a place where I should be hidden makes my blood boil. I shouldn’t be able to see the houses across the street. I shouldn’t fear that our neighbors are watching me, wondering what I am doing and where I have been. I should be protected in this space, hidden by the house and by the forest. The moon is supposed to be my sole witness.

  I stand abruptly and dust off my hands, not wanting to move the altar’s remains. When my palms are clean, I walk closer to the house and stop just before I enter what used to be my kitchen. Normally, I wouldn’t be able to enter the kitchen from the backyard. Not unless I crawled through a window or burrowed through the wood siding.

  To my left, the sliding glass doors, which once opened to the dining room, are supposed to be standing firm, but they too are destroyed. The ground is littered in shards of glass, some stained black by the intensity of the fire.

  I step into the kitchen, bypassing the parts of the floor that have already caved into the basement. The house creaks in protest like it is angry with me. After all, it was supposed to be retired. Its work was done. But I am home now, and it must bear my weight once again, even in its desperate position.

  I walk down the hallway and stop at the front door. But it isn’t there. The threshold is protected only by bright-yellow crime scene tape in the shape of an unwavering X. I flick it with my finger, and it billows softly but holds its ground, as if it alone can stop intruders.

  I glance over my shoulder at the living room. Like the rest of the house, the room is outlined by a few standing wood studs, but all are burned and almost unrecognizable.

  With the walls gone, the pictures that once hung there are missing, becoming part of the rubble that cakes the floor. The room is in such disarray, I can’t even spot the few family photos I would have wanted to keep. I tell myself Mamá took them when she fled for her safety, but there is lingering doubt. Would she have wanted to remember the family she lost to vampires—one by death, the other to immortality? I’m not so sure.

  The furniture is also missing, either consumed by the fire and turned to ash or now part of the jumbled heap at the center of the living room. I remember all the holidays I spent in this room and all the coven meetings I attended. For a small space, my mother could squeeze in a large crowd and still provide comfort and warmth and happiness. The image of the harsh creature she became flashes before my eyes—a stark contradiction to the mother I once cherished.

  I turn back, peering at the street. Still, we remain alone, but the flicker of a dim light catches my eye. There is movement in the house across the street, but I can’t bring myself to care enough to hide, so I continue my assessment of the damage done.

  The stairs at my right are completely destroyed. Even if I could use them, they would lead to nowhere because the upstairs has completely disintegrated. The roof has opened to the night sky, and the house is illuminated by the stars. Our bedrooms, our altar room, the storage area where we kept herbs and crystals…they’re just gone.

  I turn back and face Jasik. His eyes betray his anguish, and I am certain his pain matches the agony and confusion strewn across my face. Tears burn, but I hold them back.

  I sidestep my sire as I walk back toward the kitchen. I run my fingers against the one wall that remains. The paint is streaked, the drywall tarnished by soot and blackened by fire, but it managed to remain intact. I suppose this wall is the only reason the entire floor beneath me hasn’t yet collapsed. Still, it groans and wobbles, making me believe a strong wind or a hard rain is all it will take to crumble.

  When I reach the hall closet, I find the door broken from its hinge, just like I left it the night before. Like the rest of the house, much of the wood is burned. I shimmy past it, finding the clothes that hung here also missing, and glance down into the darkened basement. Everything in this house is reduced to ash. A lifetime of struggle to provide everything we needed is lost to one moment of rage so intense, the elements were used. I think about that man the humans saw, and I wonder if he has come back. Did he watch his anger burn along with this house?

  The memory of that night flashes before my eyes. I take a step closer to the place I nearly died, and I stare into the darkness. I can’t see the bottom steps, but I was just there, cowering against the wall, struggling to breathe. It feels so distant yet so close. So real and raw and painful.

  “That’s where I should have died,” I whisper.

  I’m not speaking to Jasik
specifically, but I hear him approach from behind. His movements seem cautious and slow, but he never touches me. Maybe he knows I can’t bear it. I can’t withstand the comfort of physical contact. Not right now. Not when I may burst at the seams with one simple brush.

  “You weren’t supposed to die here, Ava,” he says softly. “You were stronger than that fire.”

  I shake my head as I struggle to breathe. My throat is dry, my eyes burn, my chest aches. Everything around me is crumbling or already gone—my house, my relationship with my mother. Even my connection to my sire is wavering. Because he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know how bad it got, how I was forced to use the amulet to escape. If I tell him, he will be furious with me, and that is a reaction I can’t handle right now.

  So I don’t respond to him. I just walk closer to the darkness, lowering myself onto the first step that leads to the basement quarters. Jasik cautions me, but I ignore him. He knows he can’t stop me. The worst that can happen is the house finally falls, and even though I’m certain that won’t kill me, I almost wish it would. Because I feel as broken and disheveled on the inside as this house appears on the outside.

  “I am going down,” I say.

  Something in my tone must make him understand that this is not negotiable, because he doesn’t argue. Instead, he follows close behind me as we slowly descend into the blackness. When we emerge, I notice several things at once.

  First, the basement is almost completely intact, which startles me since I know just how bad the fire was down here.

  Second, the smell is so awful, I gag, covering my mouth and nose with my hand to prevent my stomach from lurching.

  Third, across from where I lay dying just last night, something is scribbled in the soot. I squint, trying to read the message.

  I walk closer as my vision adjusts, ignoring Jasik, whose voice is growing increasingly concerned with each passing second. I am focused so intently on trying to read the message that I barely comprehend what Jasik is saying.

  “Ava, stop,” he shouts. “We need to leave.”

  I crook my head, lowering my hand briefly as my mind processes what is etched in the floor. Without my hand covering my nose and mouth, the stagnant odor seeps in. The smell of rotting flesh overpowers my senses, and I hack the thick air from my lungs. As nauseating as the smell has become, I do not make the effort to retreat, because from where I stand, I can see the note clearly.