Never Look Back (Paranormal Huntress Series Book 1)

by W. J. May

  “It’s for our own survival.”

  “Tell that to Louis,” came the reply. They stared into each other’s eyes for a beat before Ryan lowered his gaze. “I really am sorry about him. I kinda liked that blood-sucking idiot.”

  Atlanta let go of his arm and watched him trot around the side of the bleachers and back to the field. She followed him slowly, rubbing her hidden knife aimlessly as she walked up the side of the bleachers and sat down to watch the practice. Skylar would be here any minute, a ritual she forced Atlanta to share with her every Monday and Wednesday.

  This time, however, Atlanta wanted to attend the Calen Wizards’ practice.

  Her mind went back to that fateful day when she turned twelve, when her uncle sat her down and handed her the carefully wrapped box that encased the knife she now carried. She remembered the confusion when she saw the weapon, the thought that maybe it had belonged to her parents and her uncle had decided to give it to her.

  If only it had only been that. Atlanta sat down heavily on the top bleacher and ran her fingers through her hair. Her uncle’s words still rang in her ears, the look on his face forever etched in her mind as he tried to explain the truth behind what was really lurking in the shadows of Calen. He had told her all about the families, the Lesoleils and the Tollers, the Fortress and the Calen Pack, the world that was hiding between the cracks and the threat of failing to maintain the balance. She remembered the tales of the Circle, the enslavement of the wolves, the role of the Druids and the Hand and, of course, the Insurgence.

  She had cried for three days straight afterwards, her mind filled with monsters and nightmares, her world shattered, the reality she had come to know as absolute only a mirage. Uncle James had been patient, but after a week of self-pity and sorrow he had taken her down to the basement, the one part of the house that had always been forbidden to her, and had shown her everything.

  The Skolars were the last of the Druids and, like it or not, accept it or not, this was her life. Her fate.

  “Your father wouldn’t have wanted this for you,” her uncle had said. “The Druids have always been a brotherhood, the women fortunately left out the dangers and burdens that come with the title.”

  But you don’t have that luxury, Atlanta thought, mouthing her uncle’s words.

  From then on, the basement became her home. Day and night, she trained under her uncle’s relentless eye. She witnessed a completely different side to the man who had taught her how to ride a bike and had sat on the sidelines with countless mothers watching their daughters practice ballet. Through her middle school years he’d become a drill sergeant, and she’d been pushed to the very limits of her physical capabilities.

  It was only when she reached high school that her Uncle James returned, the soft features and the hearty chuckles. It was also the first day he took her to the Dome and introduced her to the families. She remembered how shocked she’d been to see Ryan Toller there, the boyish look that usually plastered his face replaced by a stoic seriousness unbefitting of him. It had also been the first time she met Louis Lesoleil.

  “Louis,” Atlanta whispered to herself, instinctively drawing up an image of the vampire from her mind and feeling a hard stab in her chest. Smiles and shining eyes, Louis had been the closest thing to a brother she had ever known. Ever since hearing about his death she had tried to play it cool, to mask her feelings as best she could. She didn’t want her uncle to worry about her, and she definitely didn’t want more questions from Skylar.

  Now, alone on the bleachers, she let her tears flow. Her emotions ran wild inside her, and her body shivered despite the heat. For the first time since it happened, she let Louis’ death really sink in. From deep inside her she felt something burn, a new feeling she’d never experienced before, but welcomed it anyway.

  It coursed through her veins like a bonfire, and within seconds threatened to overwhelm her completely. She didn’t fight it, though, allowing a sharp gasp to escape her as she hunched over and began to cry.

  “Atlanta!”

  Atlanta’s head shot up, her body suddenly stiffening with alertness at the sudden cry of her name. She looked over the field to where Ryan was waving at her and pointing. She followed his gesture, and at the far end of the field saw what he was pointing at.

  There were three. Humans, she knew instantly, but from their gait and determined march towards Ryan she also knew they were being compelled. They carried their weapons menacingly, and Atlanta didn’t need to wonder if the knife one of them was holding was silver or not.

  She knew exactly what they were doing here.

  The vampires were striking back.

  Atlanta stood quickly and skipped down the bleachers, watching as two of Ryan’s teammates confronted the intruders. Atlanta knew what the result of that would be, and winced when the fight broke out. She sprinted towards Ryan, her eyes flitting back and forth between him and the men. Ryan stood in his place, watching and waiting, his chest rising and falling as he breathed. She called out to him but he didn’t hear her, and she silently prayed that the burst of adrenaline coursing through him didn’t force him to shift.

  Cries of pain sounded from the fight taking place to her right, and she resisted the urge to help. She knew that a compelled human would be next to impossible to handle, especially since they were blind to anything but their mission. It was like fighting against a brick wall that would only be stopped if knocked unconscious—or worse, killed.

  And Calen High was not one of the places Atlanta wanted to be dropping bodies in.

  Her eyes scanned the huddle of flying fists and grunts, a screech of pain escaping from the midst of it all. The compelled were armed, and the high school football players had little chance of holding them back without throwing some serious weight behind their fists. Her eyes met one of the intruder’s, and she hesitated for a second when she saw a bright flash of red.

  I’ve never seen that happen before.

  ‘Red eyes’ broke free from the huddle, noticed where Atlanta was running to, and immediately sprinted in her direction. He was incredibly fat, and for the briefest of moments Atlanta felt doubt creep into her. There was something different here, something off, and if she didn’t figure it out in the next second or so she’d be fighting blindly against something she didn’t understand.

  She looked to Ryan. His eyes were turning yellow and his teeth elongating. It pushed away all her doubts and reservations. He was beginning to shift, and she needed to stop it before he transformed.

  She turned sharply, changing her direction, and made straight for her attacker. The large man raced towards her with his knife held high above his head. The snarl on his face was enough to let Atlanta know that whatever thread of sanity had once been there was now gone.

  She met him halfway between the huddle and Ryan. With a quick flick of her hand, she unsheathed her knife just as he brought his down in a wide arc, aiming for her neck. She blocked the blow, quickly pushing her weight against the man’s arm and twisting around him. Without breaking stride she swung the handle of her own knife down hard against the base of his skull, forcing a grunt of pain from him, and quickly sheathed her weapon again.

  The man crumpled in a heap at her feet, unconscious and now harmless. She jumped over him and raced towards Ryan.

  “Ryan! Stop!” she hissed, and although he was watching the huddle of his teammates trying to fight the other two intruders his eyes darted for a second to look at her. “Ryan, you have to stop! Now!”

  He let out a growl, a deep rumbling that seemed to echo in Atlanta’s head, and she grabbed both his arms just as he was about to move to his friends’ aid.

  “You do this,” Atlanta whispered quickly, “and you ruin everything.”

  “I can’t stand here and do nothing,” Ryan barked, his voice a deep baritone mixed with the grinding of teeth. His hazel-yellow eyes oozed fury.

  “Yes, you can,” Atlanta pressed, refusing to let go of his arms. “You have to.”

&n
bsp; Ryan stiffened, but stopped resisting her. “I’ll have the fangs of the vampire who did this.”

  “We both will.” She tried to calm him down more. “Right now, though, you need to ease off.”

  Ryan shook his head in fury and clenched his fists. Atlanta held him tight, ready to knock him down as well if he tried to do anything other than what she was ordering him to. She didn’t know how the Calen Pack would react to her knocking their prince unconscious, but she hoped they might understand given the circumstances

  Ryan loosened up slowly, his muscles relaxing and his fists unclenching. The yellow in his eyes faded and his fangs retracted. He sighed as his body shuddered against her grip.

  “Skolar!”

  Atlanta turned. The Calen Wizards coach marched up to her while nursing a nasty blow to his cheek. Behind him, the team had subdued the other two men, some taking turns at kicking them in frustration while others tried to make sure things didn’t get more out of hand. One team member was being carried away, his arm bleeding profusely.

  The coach stopped and looked down at the man Atlanta had knocked down, then up at her with a sly grin. “You know, it might be a good idea if you tried out for the girls’ Kung Fu team,” he said, moving his jaw from side to side as he winced in pain.

  “Nah, Coach,” one of the other team members yelled from behind him. “With skills like that, she should be on the boys’ football team.”

  A few howled in approval, while Atlanta felt like crawling under a rock.

  So much for keeping a low profile.

  Chapter 6

  As she sat on her bed, her earphones over her head with the music on mute, Atlanta closed her eyes and listened to her uncle downstairs. He was far from happy; the news of what had happened at Calen High had spread like wildfire through both worlds. Needless to say, her uncle was not impressed like the football players had been.

  She glanced at her phone, tapped on the Whatsapp icon, and checked if Skylar had responded to her text. Still nothing. She couldn’t blame her friend. Atlanta knew she wouldn’t be able to keep so many secrets from her best friend for too long without something like this eventually happening. She just wished she could explain things to Skylar, rather than give her some excuse that wouldn’t have made sense to a toddler let alone someone as suspicious as her best friend.

  Nothing’s ever easy, is it? She sighed and tossed her phone to the side, bumping her head against the wall behind her as she tried to make heads or tails out of what had happened. She’d seen a lot during her time as a Hand, but never had she come across eyes that flashed red like that. It was something entirely new, although a part of her felt there was also something vaguely familiar about it.

  Where have I seen eyes like that before?

  Her uncle’s heavy footsteps on the stairs brought her back, and she watched the door patiently as the knob turned and her uncle stuck his head in. She forced a smile for him but he didn’t return it, instead walking into her room and crossing his arms. It was a stance she’d adopted from him, but it looked far more menacing on him.

  “What were you thinking?” he asked, eyeing her seriously.

  Atlanta sighed and took off her headphones. “What else was I supposed to do? Ryan was going to shift, and that would’ve been a heck of a lot worse.”

  “How about running?” James asked. “It’s what normal teenagers do. Normal female teenagers don’t knock down a man with a knife and expect no one to notice.”

  “The team took down the other two,” Atlanta argued.

  “The team is a dozen football players high on testosterone looking for a fight,” James snapped, clearly exasperated. “And it took all of them to take down two.”

  Atlanta lowered her eyes and grinned.

  “It wasn’t meant as a joke,” James scolded. “On any other night, I would’ve given you a high five and a pat on the back, told you that you did a great job out there making sure the monsters stayed in the damn shadows.” She looked up at him and could see the worry mixed with anger in his eyes. “This, however, was reckless. Why in the world did you take the knife with you in the first place?”

  “Louis,” Atlanta replied, the name enough explanation.

  James lowered his arms, and shook his head as he rubbed his temple. “I understand how difficult

  this is—”

  “Do you?” Atlanta shot back, fighting the tears welling in her eyes.

  “Yes,” her uncle said, gazing at her. “I do.”

  “Then stop lecturing me about all this when I know you would’ve done the exact same thing!” Atlanta refused to back down or defend herself. “Ryan was either going to shift or be killed, most likely the former.” She glared at her uncle, angry at the world and beyond confused by it. “Besides,” she added lamely, “I didn’t kill anyone.”

  James stared at her for a moment longer, and then finally nodded. “What did you see? What’s got you so riled up?”

  Atlanta sat up straight. “It was like they were compelled,” she explained, using her hands as she talked. “At first I thought it had to be that.”

  “At first?”

  Atlanta frowned, and tried to find a better way to explain what she’d seen. “They knew what they were doing. Except, the compelled are usually just following orders blindly. These were different…they were thinking. The one I knocked down? When he saw me, he immediately came for me. Like he knew me, or at least knew what I was, and immediately ditched Ryan for me. Compelled never do that.”

  James nodded in agreement, frowning. “Marcus assures me he’s gone through the entire Fortress. This wasn’t a compulsion.”

  “Could there be vampires outside the family?”

  James shrugged. “On the other side of the ocean, maybe. But it’s hard to believe Marcus wouldn’t know about new vampires in our own backyard.”

  “There’s something else.” Atlanta swallowed, suddenly nervous again. “Their eyes…”

  “What about them?”

  “They flashed red.” Atlanta shuddered, remembering it clearly. “It’s almost as if they were glowing.”

  The older man stiffened suddenly, his mouth open and his eyes wide. His mouth closed, then opened, then closed again. Finally, he whispered, “Are you sure?”

  She nodded. She’d never seen the blood rush out of her uncle’s face that fast before. “Positive. Why? Do you know what they were?”

  James didn’t answer, his eyes shifting as he seemed to stare off into space. She could almost feel his mind working, the gears inside turning at hyper-speed as he processed the new information she had given him. The glowing eyes obviously meant something, and her uncle had the missing information that had been plaguing her for the past few hours.

  “Uncle James?”

  James raised his eyebrows in response, but didn’t look at her.

  “Uncle James!”

  “Yes!” James snapped out his stupor.

  “What are they?”

  James licked his lips and swallowed. “Get dressed,” he ordered, his face darkening as he turned to leave. “We need to get to the Dome.”

  “I’m already dressed.”

  James stopped and looked over his shoulder. “No, you’re not. Get in your gear.”

  * * *

  The suit was deep crimson. When worn it clung to Atlanta like a second layer of skin, but the material itself was stronger than Kevlar. The first time she laid eyes upon it, she had hated it immediately. The color, the plainness of it, and the fact that wearing it meant a needless accentuation of her curves that she was utterly uncomfortable with.

  She fought long and hard against even trying it on, but her uncle had assured her that, without it, all the action she would ever see would be on TV. When she’d finally given in, she was surprised at how comfortable it really was, how much freedom of movement it allowed her and, after a multitude of training sessions with her uncle, how much protection it truly had to offer. There was also the added benefit of endless sheaths for all her weapon
s, including the Druid staff on her back.

  Nevertheless, she made sure not to pass by any mirrors while wearing it. The fabric rose from her boots, all around her body, to where the gloves clasped on with Velcro, and finally around her neck.

  “That’s so the vampires don’t get to you,” her uncle had said with a smile.

  The Druids get cloaks and hoods, she had thought, and I have to look like a freak circus stripper.

  After years of donning the suit, though, she’d grown to appreciate just how important it was. She’d seen little battle outside the basement where her uncle trained her until she bled and hurt all over. Yet, the few times she had been forced to fight, the suit had definitely played a part in her survival. She could only imagine the bones that would have been broken in the places where only bruises lingered after one fight or the other.

  “Ready?’ James asked as she slid the last of her weapons into its respective sheath.

  Atlanta nodded.

  She followed her uncle into the basement, both ignoring the light switch as they made their way across the training ground. Atlanta knew every inch of the basement by heart, had been forced to train on multiple occasions with a blindfold on, and easily sidestepped the racks of weapons and punching bags that decorated the room.

  With the lights on, one wouldn’t imagine that a space this large could exist under the Skolar house. The ten acres of land surrounding the house had been in her family for generations, and at one point had housed a mansion that had unfortunately been burned down during the Insurgence. All that remained were the passageways under the surface that branched out to various parts of the city. Of course, Calen had almost doubled in size in the past thirty years alone, but without the full force of the Druids the tunnels never caught up.

  Still, Atlanta was satisfied with the current expansiveness of the network. The passages still led to the most important parts of the city, and from there it was never far to where she wanted to be. Besides, it wasn’t like she was wearing her crimson suit all the time. Her uncle’s sedan was still more than enough to get her where she wanted to go on regular nights.