by Night, Ash
“I’ll make it worth your while. You can use and abuse me. We both know how much you enjoy that.” I lounged on the luxurious black leather couch, putting my black boots up on the armrest to irritate him. It was a force of habit. I’d learned to intentionally piss him off so he would forget my brother existed.
“Try again,” Kistel said in a bored tone. “I like it here. Is it that girl, by any chance? I can understand the boy’s compassion for her, but why are you protecting her? It isn’t in your nature to care about anyone, Alexander. Is she a replacement, perhaps?” He glanced at me sideways.
“Hell no!” I roared, suddenly on my feet. I had to hold myself back as every cell in my body screamed at me to tear his head off. Emotions and memories were a dangerous concoction and I could feel the ones I’d kept locked away threatening to erupt from within me.
“You’re angry,” he said with a laugh. “And just what were you attempting to do?”
I growled. “You made me upset. I was reacting.”
“You’ve always been that way, Alexander. You say you don’t care about things, but you react to it, meaning you do care.”
I snarled. “I react to you because you piss me off. Don’t give me that analyzing psychology bullshit.”
He laughed without humor. “I am your father. Treat me with a little more respect. You know full well I’m prone to snapping.”
I swallowed hard. Synapse in my brain were firing off in quick spurts of energy, every one telling me to run. I was about to ask the question burning on my mind for four hundred and seven years. I wanted to know the answer. I also wanted to keep running and hide from that answer. It was a question no kid should ever have to ask. Finally the words just spilled out before I could think about it. I needed to know.
“What did I do to make you kill Mother?”
He laughed. He fucking laughed. “Do you really wanna know?”
“I’m the reason she’s dead, you bastard. Now, tell me.” I said through gritted teeth. “What the hell did I do?”
“What did you do? Hm, let me think. Maybe the fucking sky was blue that day. Do I really need a reason to do anything?” He grinned at me, silently daring me to take a swing at him. His smug face was the ultimate eyesore and I desperately wanted to hear the sound his heart would make as I ripped it from his chest.
“You loved her!” I shouted. “You hated us, but you loved her! Why the hell would you kill her? That makes no fucking sense!” My whole body was shaking from the rush of emotions I was feeling. Tears burned in my eyes but I refused to let them fall. “Why the hell would you do that? You could have just killed us! That would have been a better option than ripping apart two little boys’ lives! You destroyed us!”
A flicker of emotion ran across Kistel’s face, but was gone in a flash, replaced by the unbreakable stone mask of cool indifference. “I wanted to,”
“No!” I yelled, my voice raw with anger and hurt. “That’s not a good enough reason! There has to be a reason! You never beat her without a reason!”
He was lying. For as long as I could remember, he never beat Mother without a reason. He beat her much less often than me. She told me that Kistel hadn’t always been that way. He used to never lay a hand on her, until she became pregnant. I was the reason he started. He pushed her down a flight of attic stairs a few days before my brother was born.
After we were both old enough to walk, he was softer with her, only beating her occasionally when he was drunk. He took it out on me most of the time. He looked at her with love in his eyes. The same way I had looked at Anastasia. The same way my brother looked at Erin.
“You are correct. I loved my wife. Della was my first and only love. The feelings I felt for her were unmatched. And then she got pregnant with you. I wanted to kill you. I hated you. Only you, Alexander. You were the spitting image of me. I didn’t want to share her. She had to spend more and more time with you and less with me. When she had the second brat, my hatred was spent. I still wanted him gone, but he was far less of a concern.”
I growled. “And if she had had a girl? What would you have done?”
Kistel looked thoughtful for a moment. “I would have allowed it. Della had always wished for a baby girl. It was a sick twist of fate she was stuck with you two brats from Hell.”
“Funny, I could say the same about you,”
He scoffed. “Girls don’t talk back nearly as much,”
I chuckled. “You really haven’t dated much, have you?”
Kistel smirked. “Cocky bastard,”
Sitting back on the couch, I felt a burning sensation prickling like little needles all over. His power. If he wanted, I’d be a smoldering pile of ash. Just like Peter. He raised an eyebrow in amusement.
“Still thinking about that teddy bear? Aren’t you a little old for toys?”
“Psychologists might say I haven’t progressed past age eight,”
He chuckled. “Who’s spouting psychobabble bullshit now?”
I was growing impatient. “Answer the damn question. Why the hell did you kill her?”
Kistel rose to his feet. “I don’t think you’re ready for that answer.”
“Like hell!” I spat.
“You’re still the same smartass little boy,”
“I learned from the best,”
I landed in a heap before I even knew he had hit me. Every hair on the back of my neck stood up. I had angered Kistel. A memory flashed before my eyes. There was nothing in the world scarier than Kistel angry.
Especially to a two-year-old.
“Thank you, baby,” my mother said as she stroked my cheek. I had just caught her a live chipmunk. Her swollen belly caught my eye. My new baby brother or sister was kicking. The baby was the reason she couldn’t hunt for herself. He or she was due any day now.
I smiled proudly. Mother was so happy. She never looked more beautiful to me than when she was happy. Daddy didn’t hurt her as much now. He took his anger out on me and I was fine with that. I was the man of the house. I would be strong and endure it all with a brave front. I needed to protect Mother and the baby. I couldn’t let Daddy hurt them. Family was the most important thing in the world.
Mother drained the chipmunk, its squirming body slowly going limp. “Do you need another?” I asked. “I can catch a lot. As many as you want!”
She kissed my forehead. “No, baby, I’m fine. Mommy loves you, Alexander. You’ll always be my special little boy.”
My chest swelled with pride. “I love you too, Mother.” Kneeling beside her bed, I kissed her protruding belly. “I love you too, baby sister or brother.”
Mother chuckled. “You two will get along just fine.”
I grinned. “I can’t wait.”
“Well, I sure as hell can. We don’t need another brat, Della.” Kistel complained as he stumbled into the room. He smelled of beer and his breath stank of rotten blood.
“Hello, honey! I’m so glad you’re home! Shall I prepare dinner?” Mother asked as she struggled to get up off the bed. I held her hand, helping her up. “Thank you, baby.”
“The house is a mess,” he said, looking around in disgust. “Why?”
“Well, um, I…I wasn’t able to get to everything, honey. The baby is growing so big it’s getting harder to do things. He or she will be strong. I can feel it.” She tried to smile as she put a hand on her belly.
He looked angry. His chest puffed out. I saw the green color of his eyes change to a stormy sea. His muscles were tensing in anticipation of the slap.
“Daddy, look!” I shouted as I did a handstand and intentionally knocked over an unlit lantern with my foot. “Oops, sorry,”
If my heart had a beat it would’ve been racing. He took a step toward me. My little body flew into the dresser, cracking the frame. My arm bent at an odd angle. “You damn brat! What the hell did you do that for?” He roared. The noise hurt my ears. The stench of alcohol mixed with blood made me want to throw up.
I tried to sit up. “I’m ve
ry sorry, sir…” Mother shot me a glance.
Alexander, why did you do that? She was worried that I’d angered him, but thankful he hadn’t thought to hurt the baby.
Brother or Sister can’t get hurt. I replied. I’ll make Daddy angry. He’ll leave Baby alone then.
She had tears in her eyes. You are such a smart boy, Alexander. Mommy loves you so much. Baby Aubrey loves you too.
Aubrey? I asked. But that’s a girl’s name! What if he’s a boy?
Aubrey can be a girl or a boy’s name, Alexander. She explained.
I made a face. Too girly.
You’ll love your new baby brother or sister anyway. I know you will.
Kistel kicked me hard in the ribs. I hit the door. Seeing stars, I tried to stand up quickly. The slower I got up, the better chances were that he would get bored and move in on Mother and the baby. “Are you mad?”
“I’m furious, you little bastard. Now I’ll have to buy a new lantern. Do you have any idea how much they cost?”
“No, how much?” I asked, struggling to stay on my feet. My side was on fire. My head was pounding and I was dizzy. It was hard to see. My sight was blurring in and out of focus. My breath came out in scared, ragged gasps. I wanted nothing more than to hide under my bed from this awful man, but I had to be strong.
I’d seen mothers wandering in the markets after they lost babies, their eyes sad and hollow, as if they themselves had died. Mother, as sweet as she was, could never survive that. She would choose death over the pain. I couldn’t let her go through that.
“Too much for a little boy,” he replied.
I ran as fast as I could outside before Mother could protest. Kistel followed, catching up to me in no time. He threw me into a tree. It shook with the impact of my body.Blood ran down my face and I felt my bladder empty all over myself. The sharp smell of urine stung my nose.
Kistel laughed. “Are you scared, boy?”
“Y-yes,” I said truthfully. “Had an accident,” I said, pointing to my pants.
I felt him lift me up by the back of my shirt. “You’ll need a bath then.”
Suddenly cold water lapped over my head. I couldn’t find the shore and was sinking like a rock. “Daddy! Help! I can’t-”
I shivered, jolted from that memory by Kistel’s laugh. “What’s so funny, old man?”
“I remember that day. I taught you how to swim that day. Damn vampire children progress too fast. You were two, but your mind was that of a seven-year-old. You had the fiercest urge to protect your mother and that other brat at the cost of your own life. That always puzzled me. I thought you had absolutely no morals.”
“They’re important to me,” I said. “Besides, I taught myself to swim. You just threw me in the middle of a fucking pond.”
He shrugged. “Either way, you learned,”
Pacing the room, I eyed a gold and silver dagger lying on the side table. I picked it up and raised an eyebrow. “Better hope your reflexes haven’t slowed in four hundred and seven years,”
“You really think I’d be that stupid?”
“You know what they say. The mind is the first thing to go.”
Kistel laughed. “Does your brother not matter anymore? Or the girl?”
“Oh, they matter.” I growled. “You do anything to either of them and I will snap each and every bone in your body, strap you to a huge ass rock where I will then throw you in a vat of holy water.”
His gaze was stone-cold. “Your point is? You wanted to protect your mother and that other girl. We all know how both of those incidents turned out.”
“I don’t plan on making that mistake a third time. My brother deserves happiness more than anyone in the world.”
Amusement colored his tone. “Oh? Why does brat number two deserve happiness so much?”
I slammed the dagger into the wooden floor at his feet as if it were a dart sinking into a dartboard. “Simple. He’s the good brother.”
He reached down and pulled the dagger out of the floor, examining it the way a human would examine an insect. “Good? Last time I checked your brother wasn’t a saint.”
“So he had a slip-up. He’s still better than both of us.” I shrugged. “You got any booze in this place or what?” Searching the cabinets in the kitchen, I found a bottle of whiskey. It was a brand I knew well. A hurricane couldn’t wash that smell out of our house. “Ha! Knew it. Old habits die hard, don’t they?” I poured myself a glass, debated drinking it for a second, and threw it back with a shrug, refilling it immediately. It may have been the same whiskey that he drank when I was little, and one that would haunt my memory forever, but it was all he had in the house. I would sooner claw my own eyeballs out than deal with him sober.
He grinned. “You’re a chip off the ol’ block.”
“If I’m gonna deal with you, there’s gonna be alcohol involved. Lots of it.” I raised my glass to him mockingly and drank.
“You’re more like me than you think.”
I smirked. “Exactly why my brother gets the happily ever after and I get…whatever it is that happens next.”
“And what happens next?” he asked.
Taking a long swig straight from the bottle, I smiled. “Glad you asked. Because that depends on you.”
“Great, we really should bond.”
Not smashing the bottle took more than a little effort. I was able to set it gently on the counter before I was inches from his face. It took an even greater effort to keep my voice calm. “Bond? Don’t ever use that word around me. I’d rather die.”
“Fine, ruin my fun.”
“Torture,” I replied, stepping away to the window. I drew back the curtain and sighed. “Mother loved the sunshine.”
He groaned. “Again with the stroll down memory lane? Careful, Alexander, even I have a vomiting point.”
“Just wanted to enjoy it one last time.” I said faintly. A stab of fear snaked its way around my heart. I hadn’t felt this fear since the first time Kistel ever beat me. I turned back to him slowly. “Okay. Where would you like to go?”
Chapter Fourteen
Erin
I couldn’t breathe. A scream built up in my throat, but it couldn’t escape. My chest felt like a weight was pressing down on it and I couldn’t move it off of me. My anxiety was skyrocketing. And all because of a dream.
“We’re coming for you, Errriiinnnn,” a shadow hissed. “Are you ready to die?”
“Go away!” I screamed as it inched closer, hooking its claws around me. Black markings appeared on my arms, staining my skin like ink, creeping up my neck, freezing me in place. They seemed to squeeze the life out of me, choking me. With the last of my strength, I broke one arm free and clawed at the markings. They were stinging my skin like millions of fire ants.
Kistel’s laughter rumbled in my head like a thunderstorm.
“Erin, honey, honey, calm down. It’s Aubrey. You’re here with me. You’re here with me.” Aubrey said, running a thumb over my cheek to wipe my tears. I noticed he was holding my wrist in a gentle iron grip. The nails on that hand were like something out of a horror movie. My other arm was dripping blood.
“Aubrey?” I hugged him tight, my heart racing. He held me against his chest, running his hand through my hair. “Where’s Kistel?”
“Kistel? Sweetie, you’re in bed. You fell asleep an hour ago.” In the blink of an eye, he was standing beside the bed with a glass of water in one hand and a pill in the other. “The nightmares are getting worse…”
“Thanks,” I said, taking the pill. “What time is it?”
I noticed he had grabbed the first-aid kit and was dipping a cotton ball in rubbing alcohol. He poured clean water over my wound to wash away the blood. He used a rag to clean my nails. “Almost eleven-thirty,”
“Did you hunt at all yet?” I asked. I flinched slightly as he applied the rubbing alcohol to my skin. The gashes were deeper than I thought.
“Sorry, hon. This will sting a bit. And no, I did not.”
<
br /> I sighed. I knew now it would be impossible to get him to hunt now. “Aren’t you hungry?”
He smiled as he kissed my cheek, bandaging my arm with gentle yet skilled doctor’s hands. “I can skip one night. I’ll get up early tomorrow.”
“Okay, as long as you’re not hungry,” I said.
Scooping me up into his arms, he nuzzled my neck. “Afraid I’ll eat you?”
I laughed. “Terrified,”
He kissed me. I turned my head to breathe. He growled playfully in my ear. “I love you,”
“I love you too,” I said, kissing him back.
Smiling, he pulled me close as we lay in my bed. I curled up and rested my head against his chest. “Should I wake you up for school tomorrow?”
I looked up at him in alarm. “No! We are not canceling your birthday trip!”
He chuckled. “Kidding, kidding,”
“You better be, Aubrey Adam Asher,”
He kissed my neck. “My full name has never sounded so nice.”
I smiled, resting my head on his chest again. “I love saying it. Does Adam come from the Bible?”
“Yes, my mother was very religious. She believed in God despite being a vampire. She assured me He loved me as much as He loved anyone else. She and I attended church every Sunday. Alex never went with us. I still go every now and then, but it has never held the same magic since she died.”
“I’d loved to go with you sometime,”
“We’ll have to stop by the church then. The church my mother and I went to is still there. I haven’t set foot inside it since we last went the morning before she died. We had just gotten home when Alex told me…” Aubrey paused and cleared his throat. “Sorry, Erin, I don’t think I can talk about that…”
I hugged him tight and kissed his cheek. “It’s okay. You don’t have to. Tell me a good memory, please?”
He sat up, placing me in bed. His smile didn’t come back. Thinking about his mother had really upset him. “On second thought, I am sort of hungry. I’ll be back when you wake up. I’ll let Paz know so he’ll know to listen for you.”
