by Rook, Rowan
Mason let go of Merril’s wrist. He had to. He spun forward and thrust his teeth into the vampire’s throat before it could react. He sunk in deeper. It tasted terrible – dry and cold – but blood wasn’t what he was after. He pulled the kitchen knife from his pocket and sliced it across its neck.
He hadn’t pierced bone, but apparently, it was enough. The man fell away with a half-finished scream and landed on the pavement – back first, eyes blank. He was dead.
Alex didn’t have to give the order for the others to charge.
Sudden, wild fury possessed his limbs. A man rushed him, but he dodged by leaping down instead of up. He ducked through the attacker’s legs, grabbed the back of his neck with his fangs, and shoved the dagger into the rear of his skull with all the strength he had. It broke through bone with a sickening snap, and then sunk in easily, like a knife through butter.
A second man dead.
“Merril!” Frantic eyes scanned the street, but Merril wasn’t there. The woman who’d come to their house, however, was. She lay lifeless on the sidewalk, skull dented in, broken. The rust staining her blonde hair told the story – she’d fallen to the same fire iron that’d killed her partner.
Merril had escaped. She hadn’t waited for him.
Alex’s final follower was atop him before he returned to reality. Her arms clamped around his neck and pulled him closer, so close her cold, rancid rasps tingled across his skin. He snapped his fangs and clawed at her wrists, but her grip only tightened. She had him. In a single careless moment, she'd won. His screech was swallowed up uselessly by the afternoon sky.
Alex clapped. “Oh my, I must say I’m impressed. You truly are the worst sort of monster, aren’t you? You'll spare the prey, but you’ll kill your kin. It's a pity you can’t be tamed.” Her boots clicked against the sidewalk. “Finish him.”
He craned his head just enough to see the woman raise a hammer with her free arm and ready it above the back of his skull. He shrieked and squirmed, sheer panic stealing the feeling from his limbs.
He couldn’t break free. He was trapped. There was nothing he could do. One well-placed smack from that hammer and it was over. He closed his eyes, body kicking and fighting even while his mind braced for the impact.
It never came.
A bullet broke the dread, and all at once, he was free. His attacker fell away with a limp thud. He knew that sound by now – he didn’t have to look to know she was dead. His lungs sucked down air they no longer needed and fought against the swimming edges of his vision.
When raw relief finally spun him around, he saw Sorrel. She throttled a handgun, finger on the trigger. “Let him go, Alex.”
For a moment, Alex said nothing. Perhaps she wasn’t able to. A few beats ticked by before the smirk returned to her lips. “Sorrel? What’s this now? I thought you understood.”
“I do.” Sorrel nodded. “But this isn’t what I signed up for. We won't earn the future you want by killing ourselves – at this rate, the seed will spoil before it blooms. It...wasn't supposed to be like this. This isn't what you promised us!”
“Are you sure I’m the one you should be aiming at, then?” Alex heaved a single laugh. “I’m not the one who's been killing off my own kind all afternoon.” She glowered at Mason, eyes deliberate and narrow.
“Mason is mine.” Sorrel positioned the barrel between Alex’s eyes. “Let him go, or I’ll pull the trigger.”
Silence spilled across the street.
Alex scoffed, fingers clenching beneath the trigger’s glare. “Fine, have it your way. We’ve had some rather unfortunate losses here, already.” Her brown eyes found Sorrel’s steely orbs. “But don’t be surprised if it’s you the abyss claims next.”
She fled, abandoning the bodies of her followers and scurrying down the sidewalk. The confidence and might from her words was gone – all it'd taken was a little determination and the barrel of a gun to turn her into a rodent scuttling away from a hawk. Pathetic. And equally pathetic that he'd been so helpless against her. That he'd almost lost everything to someone like her.
That he had lost Merril...
Mason spat at the sidewalk, rage crawling over his icy limbs and flushing his face. Fuck her. Fuck all of them. They'd –
He shuddered, head still spinning. Thoughts and feelings slipped through it like a sieve, breaking off into messy chunks and broken shards. The whole world pulsed. His insides pulsed. Beneath the anger lay a thicker layer of fear, and it wasn't so eager to let him go. It tickled his skin with cold, bony fingers, leaving him shivering and staring down at the carnage.
She'd almost killed him. If Sorrel hadn't showed up, he'd be dead right now. Deep in a death from which no one could rise.
"Hey," a familiar voice chimed, "you okay?"
Mason didn't answer right away. It took a while for his mind to catch up to his eyes and his ears. Everything slowly came into focus and replayed with detached, dream-like clarity. Forget them. Forget what they'd done. He’d killed again, twice. Merril had seen him for what he was.
And she'd fled.
He looked back at Sorrel, the ice and the heat melting away to something deeper and sadder. At least she'd still waited for him. At least she'd... At least she'd come. His mouth opened and closed soundlessly, searching for words and finding none.
She shot him a small smirk. “A simple ‘thank you’ would suffice.”
“Mm.” He nodded, unable to manage more than that. His voice shook as much as the rest of him.
Sorrel frowned, reaching out and putting a hand on his shoulder. He flinched, like her fingers were made of fire, then hung his head, ashamed. He couldn't quite manage to meet her eyes.
“Hey, it’s okay now." She assured. "Alex has plenty of bark, but not a lot of bite. She relies on her ‘people’ to get their teeth dirty.”
He stared at the cement. “But, I thought…”
She closed her eyes. “I did, too.”
Another silence.
“I agree with Alex – if we are the seed that will inherit society, we better start planting our harvest. But I couldn’t just let her kill my first riser, could I?” She smiled. “This isn’t what I wanted to be a part of.”
So, Sorrel really… She really did think like Alex. The difference between them was that Sorrel cherished the lives of her kin in a way Alex didn't. When it came to humans, though...
She read his face, frowning. “It isn’t so cruel! Within four years, everyone who isn’t one of us will die. We’re doing them a favor by giving them the highest chance possible to rise, and securing our own safety on top of it. We need the biggest population possible and the fewest threats. Humans have nothing left, anyway. No future. We aren’t stealing much.”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter how short it is! Merril…!” He inhaled and released a breath. “My life is over, but hers isn’t. She still has a life that she wants to live. That’s why, I…!”
She sighed. “You may not be a traitor, but you are a child. If you believe your own words – she’s alive, you’re dead – then you should have nothing more to do with her, right? Let her fight for and live her own life.”
"And how is she supposed to do that with monsters like them around?" He shouted, losing control of his lungs. “We were trying to get out of here, but she took off when Alex…” He forced himself to look at Sorrel. “Please, help me find her. She won’t stand a chance if that bitch goes after her. And I wouldn’t stand a chance alone, either.”
She stared at him a while, then groaned and shook her head. “Fucking hypocrite.” She smiled just slightly. A strange smile – solemn but warm.
He simply stared back, waiting.
“Tell you what.” She decided. “I’ll help you find this precious pet of yours if you agree to come back to the prison with me afterwards.”
“Eh?” He blinked.
She smirked. “Dale will take us back, I’m sure. Hell, he’ll probably take in the human, as long as she’s with you. But Alex is r
ight about one thing – we can’t let you wander about alone, hand in hand with a human, after what happened last week.”
He said nothing, chewing his lip so hard it likely would've bled had his veins still flowed.
“So how about it?” She stepped closer. “You get a proper future, she gets to keep whatever she has left.”
“Fine.” His silent heart dropped into his stomach as he signed his life away.
****
Mason blazed the sidewalk while Sorrel chased his footsteps. It was starting to rain, their shoes sloshing with each pound against the pavement.
“Do you know where we’re going?” She called, flicking wet hair from her eyes.
“I have a pretty good idea where she might be.” He did. There was one place that Merril treasured more than anywhere else. Though she lived now with him and Martin, there were times when she still went there.
He ran for the small tan house that hovered over the crest of the hill. Merril’s childhood home. The place where she’d lived with her mother and father before the plague stole them away.
He clambered over the locked gate nearly without stopping. The garden had been well-tended once – Merril's mother had loved flowers – but what remained was little more than a mess of overgrown weeds and grass. Only the brick pathway leading to the porch was still clear, testifying to the familiar feet occasionally treading across it.
The door wasn't locked, and this time there was no barricade. It pushed away easily, revealing the remains of a living room. All the curtains were drawn, casting the house in dim, dusky shadows. The whole place smelled of dust, specs shimmering in the anemic glow as if they told of magic instead of decay.
Sorrel stopped as she stepped inside. “Are you sure this is it? All the lights are off.”
He smiled slightly, in spite of himself. “Merril likes the dark.”
She didn’t say anything more, fingers tightening around her handgun. He found his eyes watching the weapon as the safety clicked, and she seemed to hear his unspoken question.
“It was my father’s.” She grinned. “I stopped by his house during the mess today. He wasn’t there. Didn’t look like he had been for a while. Maybe the plague finally got him.”
He froze, looking over his shoulder at the girl lingering in the doorway. “Sorrel…”
She shook her head. “Don’t get me wrong. It…” She bit her lip. “It doesn’t matter to me, either way. I wasn’t there to see him; I was there for this.” She patted the gun and painted a smile over her lips. “Sure came in handy, didn’t it?”
He nodded, falling silent as he looked about Merril’s old house. It was the first time he’d visited in years. The clock still ticked, but trailed behind by several hours. The stink of mold wafted from the kitchen. A thin layer of grime coated the shelves and the picture frames hanging on the wall. An image of a young couple holding a baby was the only one with clear glass. Merril’s parents. They stared down at him from above the table where his family had often shared dinner. He swallowed.
Merril wasn’t one for household chores. Her frequent illness had gotten her out of it growing up. He wasn’t sure how often she really visited her childhood home anymore – but it looked as lonely as it had the day the man and woman hanging on the wall had died.
His eyes wandered about the rest of the pictures. The Seige’s had always been big on archiving everything, as if they thought it would matter at the end of the world. Somehow, those pictures still hanging there made the place seem all the sadder. Corpses of memories.
His eyes paused on a photo of his and her parents – of all of them, him, Martin, and Merril – huddled together at Willowood Park, on a picnic blanket too small for so many. He remembered that picture. It was from Merril’s eighth birthday.
“It’s even smaller than my father’s place.” Sorrel’s voice broke his reverie.
He managed another nod. The house was tiny – just a basic living room and kitchen with one bath and two cramped beds. It’d been filled to bursting when her family had invited his over, always lively and loud.
Now, however, it seemed entirely empty. Had he been wrong? Was Merril there at all? He fought the urge to call out. Noise would only make it worse. So would nostalgia.
Sorrel blinked, eyes unsure as they searched the lifeless house. “Hey, where –”
A sharp, shattering crash interrupted her before she could finish. It was another sound he knew all too well – a shattering window. And it’d come from Merril’s old room. A high-pitched shriek followed seconds later.
“Merril!” His legs kicked dust off the carpet and carried him to the bedroom. It was unlocked, just like the front door, and he shoved inside to see the opening scene of a certain murder last month rewound and paused at the prologue. Alex hovered over Merril’s shaking body, pressed tight against her bedframe with eyes wide in shock.
Alex. It was none other than Alex herself who’d come to finish what she’d started in the most cowardly way possible. She wouldn’t face them once they held a little grit and a gun, but she would face a frail, frightened human. She would take revenge.
Mason lunged forward, losing control of both his head and his body. His knife groped for Alex’s neck, but she moved faster than he did, ducking down. He caught air, stumbling. He’d moved too quickly and now he couldn’t recover – not fast enough.
He saw her pull out the dagger – a wretched kitchen knife plucked from her back pocket – before it plunged into his stomach.
He screamed. The world spun, dipping and swinging in shades of gray and red. Cold fire shot up his spine, blazing from the hole in his belly and washing over the rest of his body like a fogbank. Merril screamed, too, but he hardly heard her.
All it took was the smallest shove and he was on the floor. He clutched his stomach and gritted his teeth, forcing himself not to look at the damage while he struggled to get up. It was almost impossible when the world wouldn’t stop moving.
Still…he was alive. No blood gushed from his gut. Had he been human, it might’ve been the end. But he wasn’t. He gasped for the artificial comfort of air, fighting to find the senses buried beneath the pain.
Sorrel dashed to his side, but her eyes stayed on Alex. She watched the knife with an animal’s gaze, hunting for an opening.
“I’ve had it with this human.” Alex proclaimed with another of her grim smiles. “At least let me get rid of her before I worry about what to do with you two mischief makers.” Her gaze drifted to the boy on the floor, hovering there until he managed to mirror her hostile glare. She sneered. “I’ll be watching your reaction – remember, this will be graded.”
She was going to…!
A surge of panic tightened Mason's muscles and blocked out the pain. Still, his shaking limbs refused to cooperate. He tried again, going to war with his own arms and legs. If he ever needed his body to work, it was now!
But Sorrel moved before he did. She leapt for Alex from behind, arms outstretched for her skull.
Alex spun and kicked upwards, as if she'd expected the attack all along. Her knee crashed into Sorrel's stomach, leaving her gagging and stumbling for the floor. Leaving her vulnerable. Alex slammed her against the wall and swung the knife.
It pierced right through Sorrel's throat and out the other end, tracing the route the fire iron had traveled nearly a month ago. Its unforgiving edge dug into the wood behind her and held her there like a nail. She kicked and clawed, but couldn’t pull free. She shrieked and cursed, but metal garbled her voice.
Mason gawked with wide eyes. It was a scene from a horror film. All he managed was a wordless stutter from his place on the floor.
Alex shot him another glare - one smug with victory - before turning back to Merril. The girl trembled like a cornered mouse, staring up with eyes so big they threatened to absorb the rest of her skull. Urine pooled on the carpet beneath her.
The vamp just smiled. “Nasty, pathetic little things, humans are. It seems I’ve lost my knife for the moment,
but no matter - let's do this the old fashioned way. Even you deserve the best chance possible, like anyone else.”
“No!” Merril flattened herself against the bed. She screamed something that might have one been words, but was now nothing more than an animal wail. "Stop! Stop!"
Mason summoned just enough strength to lunge forward and grab Alex’s ankle. She jerked, nearly tumbling atop the cowering girl, but pushed off the bed frame with her palms. She whirled to face him with a face flushed in anger, boot raised over his head.
…Would she be strong enough to kill him that way?
A gunshot shook the room. It was loud and sharp, not from Sorrel’s small pistol. Alex screeched.
Mason opened his eyes to watch her clench the side of her head with both hands. She wasn’t bleeding, but grayish fluid leaked through her fingers. He didn’t want to know what it was. She’d been hit. Not fatally, but hit.
His quivering gaze found Dale standing in the doorway, hands wrapped around a large, black gun. He grinned. “Good thing I stumbled across this old thing, eh? You might want to tell your ‘people’ to do a better job picking up after themselves. Of course, that’s bit hard when they’re dead.”
Alex stumbled like a drunk who couldn’t quite regain balance. She lingered for a final moment, brown eyes blazing into blue, before lumbering for the window. No one stopped her when she plunged through the broken glass and vanished.
Dale heaved a nonchalant snort, trudging up and yanking the knife from Sorrel’s neck. She collapsed to the floor with an involuntary gasp.
"You okay, double traitor?" He asked, eyes boring into her like they could see right through her, into whatever had motivated her to side with Alex and then once more with him.
"Yes." She managed, shakily getting to her knees and rubbing her throat. "Yes. I'm fine."
She met his gaze so steadily he couldn't help but smile. "I'm glad." He looked to Mason instead. “Get up, boy. If that’s all it takes to get you down, then immortality is wasted on you.”
It took him a few moments longer to slog to his shaking legs. He stood with back bent, both arms cradling his stomach. Beads of sweat glistened from his forehead. It was all he could manage not to cry out.
