by Anna Santos
“No!” She shook her head while squeezing tighter.
I shrieked in pain. If I was human I would be surely dead by now. She had no idea of the amount of strength she was using.
“Damn it, Anastasia! Let Sarah go!” Ewan ordered, losing his calm. His eyes turned black and he was serious. “We had this conversation already. If you harm Sarah, I won’t forgive you!”
“I told you to leave,” she said to me. I was curious to know what would happen, I must confess. Who would Ewan choose, me or her? “I asked you to stay away from her. And I’ll kill her again and again if I must, so you see once and for all that I’m the right one for you.”
Anger overtook me as quick as it took over Ewan when we both understood the meaning of her words. I was starting to get weaker and breathless, but all stopped when Ewan grabbed Anastasia and forced her to let me go. I slipped down to the floor, grabbing my throat. Meanwhile, Ewan had thrown her against the opposite wall, making the building shake as if we had just experienced an earthquake. She slid down the wall and sat on the floor, staring at Ewan with blurred eyes.
“What do you mean by ‘kill her again’?” he asked, his eyes red with anger and his fangs out. The same question was floating inside my mind. “What did you do, child?”
“I found them, the sorcerers that you said we had to protect her from and…I told them where she was. I got rid of her,” she confessed in bloody tears.
He roared, “Why?”
I stared at him, grabbing my throat and clenching my teeth. My mind was processing the information. Anastasia knew about them. Ewan had told her about them. They had to protect me from the sorcerers. Ewan was protecting me from them. Ewan didn’t tell her to kill me. It took me baby steps, but I understood it.
Balling her hands, she screamed, “So they could kill her! I couldn’t. I tried but I had no success.”
“You were supposed to protect her, not kill her!” he shouted, reaching for her neck and crushing it. I heard the bones crack and I felt a chill running through my body. He was extremely angered by her actions. “How could you do this to me?”
Ewan let her go, straightening up and she crawled on the floor, reaching for his feet. It was a deplorable thing to watch. She was obsessed with him and didn’t mind crawling and begging. He always liked his women to act like that. She tried to speak, but it took a while for something to come out of her mouth. She was healing while she was pleading with her eyes. He stepped back, evading her hands and making her crawl further to catch and hug his legs. Hoarse words came out. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I wanted to be with you. We would be together forever. I didn’t like her. She…was…all to you! I had to kill her so you could forget her and be mine.”
“You were my child, Anastasia. I saved you so you could help me, not for you to ruin everything!” He leaned down and made her release him. “I can’t even look at your face. You’re a liar. You’re pathetic. I’m not going to let you hurt Sarah. She’s mine. If you harm what’s mine, you know what the consequences are, don’t you?”
She just nodded while sobbing and crying like a helpless girl. By then my dizzy mind was baffled. Ewan had never intended to kill me. The little snake had planned it all by herself. He could be a sick monster, a cheating bastard, but he didn’t want me dead. My revenge was pointless.
“But, Daddy,” she cried, kneeling. “She isn’t mom. She’s only a copy. You love me. I’ve been next to you for all these decades. What can she know about us? She’s only a stupid human obsessed with vampires. Let’s go home! I love you.”
She tried to reason with him and make him understand that they belonged together. I was overwhelmed, and their pathetic circus was making me extremely mad. I was sick of listening to her. I wanted her dead and gone. If he wasn’t strong enough to do it, I was going to do it. It would be sweeter if he was the one to kill her, though. I was expecting that. I was hoping for that. However, the fact of her calling me a copy and a pathetic human was enough to stir the blood inside my veins. It was about time that she knew who she was dealing with.
Using my super speed, I grabbed my sword and suspended it by the shoulder harness sheath. Before they both understood, I had picked Anastasia up by her neck, and I was crushing her against the wall, which cracked with the impact. Then I dug my nails into her chest, touching her beating heart, observing her surprised eyes, and smiling at her screams of pain. I was pleased by my actions. Hate and cruelty were clouding my mind. I wanted her to suffer. I wanted her to bleed and swallow her conceited words.
“Who are you calling pathetic?” I asked, noticing how fast she processed the information about who I truly was.
“Violet,” she whispered, enduring the excruciating pain. I wanted her to know who I was before I ended her pitiful existence. It was nice to reveal myself to her and see the horror in her eyes. She wasn’t expecting that twist. She was sure that I was dead, so it was fun to see how shocked she was. “How can you be alive? How?”
“Your mistake was to ask someone else to kill me. You should have done it yourself. I, on the other hand, will kill you to make sure that the job is done,” I muttered and smiled, swiftly reaching for the sword on my back to give the final blow. “See you in hell!”
“Wait!” Ewan ordered.
* * *
Ewan’s command made me rethink my actions. Instead of taking her head off, I stabbed Anastasia right beneath her heart, pressing her against the wall so she couldn’t move.
Turning around, I faced Ewan. He seemed baffled by what was going on. I was extremely pissed because the jerk didn’t want her dead. But the cat was out of the bag and it was running loose. Now he knew who I truly was, and I knew that Ewan had nothing to do with the attempt on my life. It was all Anastasia’s doing. Galvin had lied to me.
“Why do you want me to wait?” I asked him, unable to conceal my irritation.
I should have killed him first. He couldn’t possibly want to save her life after all she did. Or does he love her? Can he love her like I was led to believe by others? By what she had said, Ewan had no part in the plan to kill me as Galvin wanted me to believe. He could be a bastard and a cheater, but he didn’t plan my death. He was in love with me. We were in love. Anastasia wanted Ewan for herself, so she removed me from the equation.
“As much as I think you both deserve each other, you aren’t going to ruin my day by wanting to spare her life,” I warned Ewan. “I’ve had enough of this shit. I’ve had enough of your twisted relationship. Either you kill her or you let me kill her.”
“Violet,” Ewan mumbled breathless, understanding who I was.
I rolled my eyes and gripped the hilt tighter, debating if I pulled it out or not. “It took you long enough,” I said to him sarcastically, stepping back and leaving the sword there for the time being.
“You are not going to take him from me,” Anastasia muttered, rudely interrupting before he could say anything else. She tried to get herself free, but she only screamed in pain. The sword was stuck between her and the wall and, even if she moved up the blade, it would only make her hurt more. She was trapped and defenseless. However, it didn’t change her ability to rant. In this case, about my survival to her failed attempt to kill me decades ago. “You may be alive, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s mine now! He was better off without you, and you shouldn’t have come back and ruined everything! But you were always a pretentious bitch!”
“Shut the fuck up!” I ordered her, aiming my hand at her and sending a wave of power that crushed her body against the wall. She screamed in pain and I sighed with disappointment because even her screams were obnoxious. “I’m tired of your whining attitude,” I declared, letting her go so she could breathe and stop screaming.
“Ewan,” she called him with teary and pleading eyes. “Please, daddy. I’ll be a good girl. Don’t let her kill me. I’ll do anything you want. I can even accept her back. Please, don’t leave me,” she implored between sobs.
She was a crazy bitch, no doub
t about it. She had an even crazier obsession for Ewan, but I had also had one before her. It was kind of sad, actually. She had done a lot of things to try to win his heart. For more than a century, she indulged all his demands and waited for him to realize that she loved him. He probably realized it, but he simply didn’t care. She was just a thing, someone who he could use. I wasn’t feeling any empathy towards her. I wasn’t feeling anything about them. My soul was devastated and my heart hung on by a thread, it had only a few minutes until it would shatter into tiny pieces of hurt. I didn’t want to believe before, but now I had the final proof. Ewan didn’t want me dead and Galvin had lied to me all these years. My life was ruined, and I was declaring war to the world, starting with those two.
I stared at Ewan, analyzing his reaction. He didn’t care about her. He was looking at her coldly, not even blinking at her words and pain. How could I have ever loved him before? He was a cold and selfish monster.
“So you have become one of them,” Ewan spoke to me, and I just nodded. “You had me fooled,” he whispered, realizing the full extent of what was happening. “Are you going to kill me?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“So what was the point of all this?”
“Revenge,” I said bluntly.
“For what Violet? For loving you?” he asked cockily, and I could just slap his face. Somehow his words weren’t appealing or even moving. He was simply…unimportant.
“For wanting me dead or so I thought.” I decided to explain to him the minor details.
“I never wanted you dead. I mourned your death! I love you and I’ve been loving you all this time!”
“For bringing home Anastasia, then,” I added, smirking wickedly at the bitch.
She was catching her breath, and she had put her hands on the sword, trying to pull it from her chest. Since it was hurting her even more, I let her. I didn’t know where she was pretending to go or do after being released from the sword. She was stupid if she thought she had a chance to run away from me. But it was entertaining to watch. My wicked personality was reaching its peak, and I should have been feeling less thrilled to cast destruction and death upon those petty creatures; upon that sad and scared girl who had wasted her existence loving someone that couldn’t care less about her. Thinking about it, Ewan’s hatred was punishment enough for her.
“I loved you, and I’ve always loved you!” he insisted since I was not giving him the time of day. But his words weren’t moving me as much as he intended. Though, he seemed sure about his feelings. There was a time that I thought he loved me. Right, then I just didn’t fucking care!
“Fucking liar,” Anastasia accused him. I gave her my attention, curious about what she was going to say next. She was purging all her sins and secrets that day. Good for her! “You were happy when she was gone! She was driving you crazy. You have no idea of what he had to do to indulge your constant whims and to pay for your luxuries,” she sneered to me.
I furrowed my eyebrows at her. Is she serious? Now it’s my fault that she wanted me dead? The nerve! And Ewan was my victim? The twist! If only Hollywood movies were that good in their plot twists!
“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked Anastasia, a bit curious about why she was saying all those bullshits.
“Shut the fuck up, Anastasia!” Ewan ordered her, speeding his way to the girl and grabbing her by the neck.
He began to choke her again, and she put her bloody hands over his to prevent him. I was quiet, watching the scene with confusion and incredulity. It was pathetic. If he truly wanted to kill her, he wouldn’t restrain his strength. Who did he want to fool? Even if he snapped her neck, she would eventually come to life. It was a lame punishment. But why didn’t he want her to speak?
“Please, please,” she begged him. “Don’t be uncaring. You know I love you. All I’ve done was because I love you. I always did everything you asked me to. So why don’t you love me back?” Tears fell down her cheeks as her eyes were glued to Ewan’s evil ones.
“You tried to kill Violet, you stupid cunt! You fucking whore! I could forgive you a lot of things, but not that! You are dead to me! I want to cut off your fucking head myself. You lied to me all these years. You said they had killed her in front of you! You let me mourn her death instead of looking for her to save her from them!”
“You said you hated her. You said it. And then you would run back to her and you would do everything she asked. I was so jealous,” she stuttered, trying to speak and trying to take his hands from her neck. “You would fuck with me and then you would go back to her.”
“She was just a kid,” I mumbled, confused and troubled, unsure of when their relationship had begun.
Anastasia kept blurting all out. “Didn’t I do everything you asked? I even pleased other men in front of you.”
Okay, that made my stomach twist. It was one thing having an idea of the extent of their twisted behavior, it was another listening to it. My stomach content was seriously close to coming out. My body reacted differently since I could process food.
“Stop talking, worthless bitch!” Ewan ordered, releasing her neck and slapping her hard on her cheek. I was quiet, witnessing the violence and the cursing. “She was my wife, and you were there to keep her happy! But you even failed at that. You worthless piece of shit!”
“That’s enough. Let her go,” a male voice ordered, bringing me back to Earth since I was hearing and witnessing Ewan and Anastasia’s talk as if I was a simple viewer of a senseless and confused soap opera. They were both messed up and crazy. But my life was no better than theirs. Someone owed me an explanation, fast!
I fisted my hands and prepared myself to turn and face the owner of the voice since I knew it was Galvin who had made an appearance. Suddenly, my body started to tremble as I turned to face him. He had a serious expression and he spared me a look. I was terribly disappointed with him. He had lied to me, so I shouldn’t hesitate to confront him and discover the whole truth.
When Ewan took the sword from Anastasia’s chest and tried to swing it to take Anastasia’s head, Galvin’s head snapped at him and he immobilized him before he could finish the action. He saved Anastasia’s life, and I couldn’t be more confused. Then he opened his arms and we were all teleported from my apartment.
Moments after, we all appeared in what it looked to be an empty and large warehouse. The noise of Anastasia falling to her feet and sitting on the floor while grabbing her chest was enough to make me breathe and glare at Galvin. I was pissed at him and he knew that because he had a guilty look on his face. He knew I had found out about his lies to me regarding Ewan, so I would join the hunters. Then it hit me, and my heart crumbled inside my chest. The pain was unbearable. Had he also lied about his feelings for me? Did he use sex to control me and make me want to kill Ewan? Did he fake all his emotions? That would be even worse than lying to me about Ewan.
I stared at Ewan who was staring at the both of us, intrigued and immobile. He was still under the immobilizing spell and Anastasia was still sobbing like a helpless girl.
“We need to talk,” Galvin said. I wanted to slap him right there. But my body seemed to be reluctant in obeying my orders. My mouth was also finding it hard to articulate words. “Take them,” Galvin ordered the men that I hadn’t noticed behind him. They were wearing the uniform of the assault team of hunters, and they were pointing their guns at the two vampires behind me and Galvin. He wanted those two alive, which was a surprise since he was always rushing me to kill them. Yet I was already too confused and hurt to care about his reasons.
“You lied,” I blurted with a weak voice and broken heart.
Suddenly, he was in front of me, staring at my face with those big blue eyes, those lying eyes. I fisted my hands and gulped, refusing to be moved by his sad eyes. Before I could push him back, he put his hand over my shoulder and we were teleported out of there.
32
THE LIE
WE MATERIALIZED IN the temple. My
stomach swirled and I stepped back after the arrival. I got dizzy with the two teleports in a row. It took too much out of me. I grabbed my stomach and looked around. It was day where we were, and there was a distinct smell of fresh pine around us. I felt even worse because that place reminded me of the things we shared there, the love we had made. Everything was tainted by his lies, now.
He tried to help me and I pushed him back. I didn’t want him to touch me. I didn’t want to stare at him. I just wanted to explode and slap him. I had enough of abusive and lying men.
“You fucking liar! You lied to me all this time,” I accused him, letting my rage out. Before I could say anything else, he was down on his knees in front of me, hugging my waist and hiding his head against my stomach.
My heart stopped beating, and my eyes lost their sight for a moment. The temple started to spin around and my voice disappeared. I grabbed my hands to his shoulders, forcing myself to stand up and endure the vertigo. Still, there is something about a guy on his knees that makes women stop talking and frowning in confusion. I was no exception. I had no idea why he was on his knees unless he was begging for forgiveness.
“I’m so sorry, Violet,” he mumbled against my stomach, making me lose my breath. “Please forgive me,” he begged, voice laced with grief.
I tried to breathe and understand what his words meant. Rage had diminished and the pain was making hard for me to speak. I wanted to stay mad, but he was there, on his knees, holding me tight and begging me for forgiveness. I wasn’t stupid, I knew what that meant. At least I hoped it meant he didn’t lie to me completely. Unless he was still pretending. And that would be even more revolting. But then again, the men in his family weren’t known for their sanity and fidelity.
“Why did you lie?” I asked, trying to understand his reasons.
“I knew it was the only way to make you join us.”
“You made me believe that he didn’t love me anymore. That he had replaced me for Anastasia and they had planned my death. You…broke my heart into tiny little pieces!” Memories of that pain rushed to my mind and made me weaker. My eyes stung as I clenched my jaw and dug my fingers into his shoulders.
