Embracing Humanity (Embracing Shadows Book 2)

by Night, Ash

  “You can have a little,” I said. Was I crazy? What if Alex had decided to kill me after all? For some odd reason this felt more like a memory than a dream at this point so if it was a memory obviously he hadn’t killed me. Why didn’t I remember him? Why was I afraid of him now if I’d been so trusting then? None of it made sense. His fangs sank into my neck.

  Then the screaming started.

  Chapter Twenty

  Aubrey

  Careful to remind myself of the tendons in her wrist, I jolted, fully alert, and stopped drinking. “Erin, honey, what’s wrong? Did I hurt you?” Although I was fairly certain I hadn’t, the thought made me sick.

  She was laying on the bed, screaming, trying to get away from something only she could see. I held her close to my chest. Alex’s face covered in blood flashed through my mind as I looked into her mind. I sighed. Maybe it was wrong of me to stay out of her mind as I drank her blood. The unpleasant memory of Alex drinking her blood unfolded before me. At least I knew why she was so scared.

  Alex! This needs to stop! A memory got through and it’s scaring her! You need to reverse what you did! I mentally shouted at full volume.

  Shout a little louder next time. I was looking for a reason to have Kistel bash my skull in. Now, why are you acting like the building’s on fire? Alex was whispering. He sounded strained. He must have put up a barrier so Kistel couldn’t intercept our communication.

  Erin remembered something.

  He sighed. What the hell did you do?

  I drank her blood. It brought back the memory of when you drank her blood and now she’s scared shitless and I can’t get her to snap out of it. Reverse whatever you did to make her so terrified of you!

  I can’t. I’d have to undo that particular powerful compulsion by looking at her. Kistel isn’t going to let me out of his sight. You won’t believe what he did so I could feed.

  We can talk about that later! What do I do?

  Compel her.

  I can’t do that!

  Hmm…maybe you could try knitting her a sweater. Just man up and do it, brother! It’s not like it’ll kill her. You have to compel her to calm down. The human heart is fragile, yes, but I highly doubt it could explode. Then again, you’ve never been a big risk-taker, have you?

  Sighing, I held her against my chest to muffle her screams and rubbed her back, preparing myself. I had promised to never touch her mind. In the past, I’d done what I needed to do to survive. I’d never liked this part of my power. Reading someone’s mind was nothing, an action as guilt-free as turning the pages of a book. But compulsion, controlling someone’s mind to suit my needs; That feeling was much more intimate, like confessing a sin. I’d only done it a handful of times in all the centuries I’d been alive.

  It filled me with guilt each time no matter the reason. This reason, just like all the others, was inherently selfish. I didn’t want Erin afraid of Alex. I didn’t want her afraid of the most important person in my life. And I knew it killed Alex to know that she was.

  “Erin, please, please look at me.” I felt tears burn at the back of my eyes. My power slipped a bit, like trying to thread a needle with shaky hands. I growled. I was never very good at controlling my power when I was feeling strong emotion.

  Despite that, I was able to get her to listen to me. I told her she needed to calm down. Her mind resisted, but I was able to coax her into believing that she was safe. A human’s primal fight-or-flight response was most definitely the strongest instinct they possessed.

  “I’m sorry…” Erin said a while later, after she had fully calmed down. “I ruined our evening somehow. You’re sad.”

  “No, no, sweetheart. This evening was lovely. I had an incredible time.” I said with sincerity although it was still hard to look her in the eye. I couldn't believe what I had done. I had compelled Erin, taken away her free will. If I hadn’t, she’d still be on the bed screaming. If I hadn’t, she’d never have stopped. I tried to convince myself compelling her was the right thing to do, that the stress wasn’t good for her, but that thought was little help. I felt dirty, like I had forced myself on her. I wasn’t able to convince her Alex wasn’t a threat, though. He was the only one who could do that. Trying had only succeeded in raising her heart rate to unsafe levels.

  Knowing I’d compelled her made me physically ill and I had thrown up dinner while she slept. Alex would have laughed. Compulsion was nothing to him. It took no more thought than flipping a light switch, perhaps even less. I loved my brother, but there was no denying we were different. My brother saw things as a purely black-and-white world. You wanted to do something, you did it because it felt good. My world, however, was filled with shades of gray. There was always consequences for actions. He had none. My thoughts flashed back to an earlier conversation we had had many years ago in the rainy streets of a young New York.

  You could never understand, brother. We’re different sides of the same coin, you and I. Always have each other’s backs, but we could never truly be in each other’s world. No matter how close I am, I could never see the world the way you do.

  He did once. When he was young, and Mother was still alive, he saw the world differently. He wasn’t as cold, not as jaded. Once he was just a little boy that wanted his mother’s love. He was the brother I chased frogs with. The brother who fought me for the biggest slice of peach pie, but secretly let me win. He’d had a heart once. He still had a heart.

  He just rarely let it see the light of day.

  My head was pounding with the effort of trying to dig around in my brother’s thoughts. I had to figure out where the hell he was. I was amazed I was able to do this at all. Alex must have been under some major stress. Excavating his mind was still extremely hard, but not impossible like it usually was. I could see through his mind’s eye. He and Kistel were outside, digging holes in the woods. Two young woman, both no older than twenty-five, were laying dead in the grass a few feet away. My mind balked at the way they were dressed. Hookers? That must have been what Alex meant when he said I wouldn’t believe Kistel had done so he could feed. He was right. I wouldn’t have believed it.

  I sighed as I saw they were done digging within a few minutes. Shallow graves, no less. It shouldn’t have annoyed me. I knew my brother’s way of life and had accepted that it was never going to change. It still bothered me when he treated the remains like trash. For as much of an asshole as Alex could be, at the very least he was respectful enough to never torture a human or disrespect its body while I was in his presence. I guess this was karma for peeping inside his mind.

  After the bodies were disposed of, he and Kistel got into a black Mercedes and drove away from the hotel. “So, Alexander, having fun?”

  Alex sneered. “Yeah, all I need is a hole in the head to make this night complete. Where the hell are you taking me, old man?”

  Kistel chuckled. “It’s a place your little pet knows well,”

  That got Alex’s attention. “If you lay a hand on her mother, I will-”

  Kistel held up his hand to silence him. “Wrong direction, genius,”

  “Well, it’s not my fault I don’t know where the hell we are! You knocked me out before we left the house and you keep messing with my mind so I can’t tell where we are!”

  Not good. I wouldn’t be able to find Alex if Kistel did that. Erin would be up for breakfast any minute yet. I had to know where Alex was going. I had to get my brother away from the man who killed our mother. He didn’t deserve to die.

  “I’m taking you to see where she spent the worst two years of her life. I have to check on the progress of the others, after all.”

  “Others?” Alex asked, disgust in his voice. “There were others?”

  “Yes, many other children,” Kistel said with a grin. “Erin was the oldest. I prefer experimenting with much younger. Around six and eight, actually.”

  Ice flooded my veins. He was torturing kids. And not just kids, but kids the same age as Alex and I when we lost our mother. I t
hought I knew what a monster he was, but this blew my old definition of what he was out of the water. Mother would be absolutely horrified. She lived for her children.

  “You’re…C-ch-children?!” Alex shouted. He was slightly shaking and looked like he wanted to throw up. He would never admit it, but he drew the line at young children. He would never hurt a child. He had a soft spot especially for six-year-olds.

  Kistel grinned. “I’ve always hated children and for the past few years I’ve been curious about how abuse affects human children. So, I gave a few some horrible nightmares and their mothers and fathers willingly gave up their sons and daughters to the Charleston’s Helping Hand Institute.”

  “Not very good at names, are you?”

  “The name does not matter. Fake glowing reviews and parents will do anything.”

  “Do you…” Alex couldn’t finish his sentence.

  “Kill them? Not usually. There are some who don’t survive, of course, but that’s rare. We shoot a few who prematurely go mad, but not often. You’d be surprised what chaos a broken individual like that can cause. They go home with even worse nightmares and I suspect live decent lives, but a few have been news-worthy. School shootings and things.”

  “It wasn’t enough to torture us…”

  He laughed. “As I recall, I never actually tortured your brother.”

  “Before you killed our mother…I was tilling up the fields and began to plant the summer vegetables after church as Mother and my brother were in the kitchen getting breakfast ready when you came home. You nearly impaled me on the fucking till when I was just minding my own damn business. I heard Mother scream and my little brother was crying. You struck him across the face. You were drunk. You thought he was me. You wanted to kill me that day.” Alex’s voice shook with anger. “Why didn’t you just do it? Why didn’t you just do it and leave the rest of my family alone?”

  “Like you said yourself, Alexander, I was drunk.”

  “So you took our mother away because you were drunk?” All four windows shattered and the car swerved because of the sheer force of power exploding from within the car. Kistel had to struggle with the wheel so the car wouldn’t get impaled on a tree. I doubt Alex would’ve cared.

  “Della was everything to me. I was angry that she wouldn’t let me kill you. I didn’t mean to kill her. I truly do regret what I did, but at least I don’t bring it up every five minutes nearly half a damn century later!” Kistel snarled. There was no remorse on his face. No guilt for what he had done. No shame for the accident that had killed his wife and the one loving parent his children had. Only rage directed at his oldest son.

  I couldn’t take it anymore. I exited my brother’s mind and sat on the living room couch shaking with tears streaming down my face. So that was why. Our mother was dead because Kistel had an anger problem and was a drunk. That was all. It had been an accident.

  An accident.

  Our mother was dead because of an accident.

  My chest tightened. How could anyone be that cruel? I mean, obviously, vampires and humans alike did cruel things everyday, but this just seemed barbaric. It just seemed worse because my mother was a saint. She didn’t like hurting anyone and even prayed for the animals she hunted in order to survive. She was a true saint. God was lucky to have her.

  “Aubrey, hey, are you okay?” Erin asked sleepily as she made her way down the stairs.

  “Uh, yes, I’m fine. Good morning, sweetheart. Would you like some breakfast? I’m afraid I don’t have any breakfast food here. We could stop somewhere, anywhere you like.”

  She smiled. “No, that’s okay, Aubrey. I’ll just make a ham and cheese sandwich from the supplies in the truck. Would you like one?”

  “No, thank you. I don’t feel like eating.” That was an understatement. I had no idea what I was going to do. I needed a plan. I couldn’t stay on this couch for the rest of my life, pretending I hadn’t heard what I’d just heard. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. I needed to keep moving. I couldn’t imagine how Alex was feeling.

  “Oh, okay. Well, we can go whenever you’re ready, sweetie.” Erin said, biting her lip before leaving. She wanted to ask more. Even through the brain fog her meds were putting her in, she could see something was wrong. I didn’t have to tell her about my mother. She didn’t need to know how she’d really died. I wish I hadn’t found out either. As far as I was concerned, I was much more content with the lie.

  Pulling out my phone, I tapped Charleston Helping Hand Institute into the search engine. The North Carolina address popped up instantly along with a website promising the upmost care of mentally unstable children ages six to ten. The thought made me sick. I memorized the address and then wiped my search history clean. I didn’t want anything to do with the place. The thought of going there made my skin crawl.

  Erin was eating a ham and cheese sandwich in the kitchen, happy as a songbird. I forced a smile as I thought of a way to tell her where we were going. “Happy four hundred and twelfth birthday!”

  “What?” I asked, just realizing she’d spoken after she looked at me waiting for me to reply.

  “I said, happy four hundred and twelfth birthday.” She laughed. “Are you so old you forgot your birthday? Today is May fourteenth.”

  “Oh, hadn’t noticed. Thank you, honey.”

  “Anywhere special you’d like to go?” Erin asked. She was grinning ear-to-ear. She had been so excited for my birthday. My phone rang the tone to let me know someone wanted to video chat. My heart froze. Was it Kistel? The chances were small, but just the fact there was a chance threw my mind into a frenzy. I tapped my phone to answer it.

  Topaz’s face appeared on my screen so clear it was almost as if I could strangle him which I definitely was considering. “Happy birthday, you old fart! You didn’t think I’d forget, did ya? I was going to call you at midnight, but then I didn’t want to…interrupt anything.”

  Erin blushed. “Paz, get your mind out of the gutter. We had a wonderful evening.”

  He laughed. “That’s great.”

  “Thanks for the birthday wishes, buddy.” I smiled. “Erin, excuse me a moment.”

  She nodded and kept eating her sandwich at the table. I went upstairs, making small talk with Topaz until I shut my bedroom door. “So what’s up?”

  “I need a favor.”

  “Anything, birthday boy, what’dya need?”

  “I need you to drive to this address if you don’t hear from me tonight. Text Erin to let her know you’re on your way.” I sent him the address in a text.

  Topaz’s face grew dark. “What the hell did you say? Aubrey, I swear to God, if you leave her again, I will-”

  “Shhh! Keep your voice down, idiot! I don’t want to leave her. That’s the last thing I would ever want, but some stuff has come up and I might not make it out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Kistel is even worse than I thought. That address I gave you is where Erin was trapped for two years before I met her.

  “That sick bastard! Do you need any help?”

  I shook my head. “No, Alex and I got it, but if you don’t hear from me by around midnight tonight, I need you to come pick Erin up.”

  “You’re taking her with?!”

  “Yes. Alex and I will have our hands full with Kistel. I need her there to help set the other kids free.”

  His hands were shaking with anger. “There are others?”

  “Yes. He’s a barbaric monster. Now promise me.”

  Paz nodded. “Of course, bud. I’ll keep Erin and the others safe.”

  “Thanks, Paz, you’re the best.”

  “No prob. Give that bastard a punch in the face for me, will ya? He deserves it for wrecking your birthday, among obvious other things.”

  “You got it.” I hung up and walked back downstairs. “Erin, honey, I know where I want to go today.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Erin

  As the truck crested the hill, I laid eyes on the bui
lding that had been my prison for two years. The cold stone interior made my heart gallop as if that building was the finish line. The thought was ironic. The finish line? I had gotten away the last time I was here, sent back home, considered cured even though I worse than ever before. Apparently I played the part well.

  Kistel had unlocked those memories so I remembered everything. The electric shocks. The scraps of food I was given every few days. The small corner of the room I’d used as a bathroom. I’d come home with a prescription for the pills that would help make the memories fuzzy and would prevent me from remembering anything about the place.

  Five years ago, Aubrey had gotten me off those pills and I’d slowly regained my life. He helped me return to the world, helped me catch up on subjects I’d fallen behind in, and he’d helped me out of my shell. For a few years after getting off the pills, I was very afraid of being around people. School was a nightmare. At least on the pills, I was numb. Off them, I felt everything.

  People were noisy. Everything was very noisy. Emotions were the loudest. Aubrey had been very patient, sensing when I was uncomfortable, mostly in group settings, and taking me out of that situation. He had helped me so much and I had come so far because of it. Even if going back to this place terrified me, I owed him. I had to help him get Alex back. Even if Alex scared the hell out of me.

  Aubrey squeezed my hand as he shut off the engine. “Thank you so much for this.”

  “No problem.” I said. My voice trembled.

  Hugging me, he kissed my cheek. “Thank you for being so brave. Not many people could do this. Those kids will really appreciate it.”

  “I hope so,” I said as he opened the door for me. As my feet hit the muddy earth, the building before me seemed infinitely larger without the warmth and safety of the truck.

  Aubrey held me together for the moment. His muscles tensed around me. Was he as scared as I was? For the first time in our relationship, I wished I could read his mind. His silence and his body language spoke volumes.