Best she could tell, the vents blew cold air onto her face. She felt sleepy. The energy she’d absorbed from the blood she drank last night had worn off. As soon as she had her stuff she would call Butcher for more. She had questions, but wasn’t sure he’d be able to answer them. She wanted to know how often that guy they’d talked about met up with Butcher’s father. Was it daily? Did he need a cup of blood a day to survive?
The scream was muffled, but she heard it over the steady rattle-hum of the engine and the heater fans. She looked at the house as she shut the engine and kept her hand on the keys. She closed her eyes and waited.
The unmistakable sound of breaking glass was followed by a thud.
Madison threw open the Jeep door and ran toward the house. She knew her hearing had become sharper, but was not confident what she heard was coming from her mother’s place. It didn’t slow her down. She reached the door and pushed through it. The doorknob banged open, smashing through drywall, and was stuck open.
No one was in the living room. The struggle came from the kitchen.
She smelled blood. It filled her nostrils. It made her eyes roll toward the back of her head for a moment. It made her think of entering a doughnut shop as a child when fresh pastries were pulled from the ovens and the aroma filled the room. She felt her teeth–fangs–pop from her gums, the pain pleasurable. Her stomach growled.
She stopped at the threshold with her arms out and palms pressed against the archway for balance. Her vision was sharp. The colors almost spilled off everything. Sound ran through her head as if in stereo.
Her mother was on the floor. Her arm was cut open, blood dripped from the corners of her mouth and nose. The kitchen table was on its side, a leg broken. There was a stack of dishes, what were once dishes, in pieces and shards all over the floor. Nancy’s eyes went wide when she noticed Madison.
Nancy breathed fast, heavy. “It’s okay, Maddy. Go on, go to school.”
Madison huffed. Her chest deflated as she lowered her head, eyes centering on Oliver.
“This doesn’t concern you,” Oliver said. He wore a food-stained tank top. Hair from his back seemed to sprout and grow thick and long on his shoulders. He reeked of whisky. They both did.
Madison snarled. She knew her lips quivered. An anger like she’d never felt swelled inside her. She couldn’t move. Her legs felt frozen in place.
Nancy struggled to get back up onto her feet. She set a hand onto broken glass and winced. More blood fell from the new laceration. Madison held onto the wall, her knees wobbling. There was too much blood exposed; available.
Madison heard a drip from the sink faucet, and it thundered against her eardrums as it splashed onto the tin of a pot.
Walking past the toppled table, broken dishes crunching underfoot, Madison extended an arm out to her mother and pulled her up onto her feet. Nancy wrapped an arm around her midsection. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. It was a misunderstanding. Why don’t you go to school?” Nancy said.
The quiver in her tone of voice made Madison’s ears ache. “You’re coming with me.”
She held her mother close, putting herself between them as she started to walk past Oliver.
“You are not taking your mother anywhere. I am sick of your interference. You think you are some kind of princess doing nothing around here, staying up in your room, and then taking off to go live with your father. Do you know what that did to your mother? Have you got any clue the kind of turmoil you’ve created between us? You, because of your selfish!”
Madison punched Oliver in the chest. There was no warning. Her left arm shot out as her fingers rolled into a first. She didn’t want elongated and sharp nails puncturing flesh.
Oliver gasped; both hands went to his chest as if that would help him catch his breath. His mouth was frozen open in an “O” as he attempted to suck in air. He reached behind him, staggering back until he found balance against the kitchen counter.
“We’re out of here,” Madison said. She had not understood the intensity of the flames burning inside her until now. It spread everywhere like wildfire. It burned. She felt pain so excruciating she feared she might collapse.
A droplet of water crashed against the tin pot.
Her mother’s breathing sounded labored, with short, shallow breaths. Something was wrong with her, Madison knew. Something internal.
“I’m going to stay. I’ve got to clean this mess up,” Nancy said.
Madison almost struck her mother. The anger she felt was turning into rage. She was not going to let Nancy side with Oliver, whether she wanted to or not. This was decided. “You are not staying here. And Oliver will be moving out.”
Oliver was throwing a punch, his arm up over his head, swinging down at Madison. It was unexpected, and when she saw the blade from a French knife it was too late to do much more than step aside.
Madison let go of her mother to thwart off the attack but was too late.
The wood handle of the knife was all Madison saw sticking out of the center of Nancy’s chest.
Blood bubbled out of Nancy’s mouth.
Madison lowered her mother to the floor. She was still alive, still breathing. Her teeth were covered in blood, and it spilled over her chin gathering in a pool in the small dip at the end of her throat.
Madison looked up at Oliver. She hissed, her lips revealing white, sharp fangs.
Oliver took a step back, and then another. He held his hands up as if surrendering. He shook his head, and mouthed the word, No, over and over but without voice.
She saw the fear in his eyes. “You killed my mother.”
“I wasn’t trying to hurt her,” he said.
Madison shook her head as his words registered in her head. He had hurt Nancy. He had meant to stab Madison. That argument was not going to get him mercy. She smiled, and almost smiled at him. Or she was smiling at the thought of what she was about to do?
She launched herself forward, and her nails plunged deep into his flesh. When he threw his head back to scream, she opened her mouth wide and drove her fangs into his neck.
Her fangs were like straws as she sucked blood from his body. It didn’t matter that he reeked of booze and hot dogs. His blood was sweet and invigorating as it flowed into her. He had his hands on her waist, attempting to push her away. His strength did not compare to hers. She grew stronger as she continued to slurp away at the blood that flowed so freely into her mouth.
Oliver’s legs no longer supported his body. His heart still beat. Slow. Weak. She held him up, kept him backed into the counter, and continued to feed.
When he was lifeless in her arms, and the blood stopped free-flowing, she let him fall. His body hit the floor with a thud. His open eyes stared lifelessly at Nancy.
Madison wiped her forearm across her mouth and stood still for a moment looking up at the ceiling, savoring the flavor that exploded like Coke and Pop Rocks inside her mouth. She eventually turned and looked at the bodies by her feet.
Another drop of water fell from the faucet and crashed into the tin pot.
Madison knelt beside her mother, held her head on her lap. She cried. The tears streamed down her face. She felt hollow inside. Her anger had melted away, and now it was only guilt and remorse that she felt.
And fear.
She had drained Oliver of blood. She had crossed the line Butcher warned should not be crossed.
The transformation felt powerful. Every muscle inside her ached. She knew she had grown stronger. She could just feel it, even in her fingers and toes, her vision, and hearing. She knew if she saw her reflection her eyes would blue swirling balls inside her sockets. She didn’t need to look.
She needed to flee.
The house was a crime scene.
Her mother had been murdered. She had killed Oliver. Traces of her were all over the house.
Any crime scene investigator would be able to place her in the house at the time of the murders.
She set her mother’s
head down on the floor and closed Nancy’s eyes with her fingertips.
She stood up and looked around the kitchen making sure there were no obvious signs indicated or implicating she’d been over. When she was satisfied, she left the house and ran to the Jeep.
The Jeep might prove problematic if anyone had noticed it parked out front. She looked at her face in the rearview mirror.
Aside from smeared blood on her face, it was as she’d feared.
Her eyes were far from normal. They were no longer blue, like marbles.
They were black, like coal. They might never change back to normal.
She knew she could call police. Someone else might have already. There had to have been a lot of noise spilling from the walls and cheap windows of the house.
She did not hear any sirens.
Calling her father made the most sense. He would know what to do. She was glad she had not told him she was going to her mother’s for her things. The only one who knew that was Neal.
Neal.
They were supposed to meet at New Roots after school. That was hours away.
She stepped on the clutch, dropped the gear shift into first, but didn’t pull away. Her eyes surveyed the houses along the street. Someone had to have seen or heard something. Someone always did.
She took her foot off the clutch. The engine chugged and stalled. She dropped her head against the steering wheel. With her eyes closed, she removed her cell phone from her pocket and dialed 911.
Part II
The Revelation
Chapter 13
Madison sat on the back bumper of an open ambulance, a blanket wrapped around her. Officers taped off her mother’s house. There were cops in uniform and in plain clothes walking around the house, through it, and up and down the sidewalk, going house to house knocking on doors.
Shivering, Madison watched it unfold in front of her, worried that she would spend the rest of her life in prison.
An unmarked car pulled up. Investigator Wheeler climbed out of the driver’s side and her father from the passenger side.
Madison stood up. The blanket fell away from her shoulders as she ran for him.
Adam opened his arms wide, and Madison fell into them.
“You’re crushing me,” he said.
Her strength. She let up, but only a little. She loved her father holding her. She felt safe, as if everything could be okay.
It couldn’t.
Not anymore. Nothing could ever be okay again.
She heard blood course around under her father’s skin. It bothered her, but not as badly as it had the last few nights, because this time she was full. The realization hit her hard. She knew she would not be able to stay with her father, might never be able to see him again, at least until she learned to control her urges.
If the urges were even controllable.
“Are you okay? What happened? Honey, what happened?”
She didn’t want the hug to end, but pulled away. Her eyes went to Wheeler and back to her father. They hadn’t commented on her eyes, and weren’t staring at her like she was possessed. She hoped they had gone from black to blue.
“Why don’t we sit back down on the ambulance? Get you back under a blanket. I don’t want you going into shock, okay? And then I can ask you some questions,” Investigator Wheeler said. She had that small pad of paper and a pen in one hand.
Madison thought she might get sick. Her stomach flipped and flopped. She wanted to press her hand against it, but didn’t.
Adam said, “I don’t know. She’s just, I don’t think now’s the best time for questions.” He wiped his hands down the outside of his coat.
Wheeler pursed her lips. It wasn’t a smile. Her mind was spinning, Madison could tell. “We could wait. Have both of you come down to the station a little later?”
Both of them, Madison thought. The ex was always a suspect. “I’m okay. I can answer questions.”
She didn’t want her father getting in any trouble. She would never let him take the blame for this.
“Are you sure,” he said, a hand on her shoulder. “Because we can go down there later. I’d rather get you home.”
“Let’s do it now,” Madison said. “I want this to be over.”
What she wanted was to go back in time. As a kid she’d used a refrigerator box as a time machine. She colored the inside to make it look like wires, gadgets, buttons, knobs, and levers were everywhere. In the center was the computer and program screen where she could enter dates in history she’d get transported to. Time machines didn’t exist.
Or did they? Only a week or so ago she’d have said the same thing about vampires.
She sat on the ambulance bumper. A paramedic draped the blanket over her shoulders that she’d dropped. She snuggled up inside it. She felt cold to the core and knew a blanket would never warm her.
She heard conversations going on all around her.
Officers on the front stoop to her mother’s house discussed the macabre scene inside as one of the worst they’d ever been called on. The medical examiner talked with an investigator about how the stab wound was fatal, but “it looked as though the female vic had been roughed up good before getting herself murdered.”
She tried to shut out the conversations around her. They were distracting. She imagined schizophrenics felt this way. Only Madison was actually hearing voices. She ground her teeth to keep from closing her eyes and shaking her head.
“Are you okay, Madison?” Wheeler said.
“I’m okay. My head hurts a little.”
“Did you get hurt?”
She shook her head slowly. “Just a headache, I think.”
Adam could barely stand still. He shifted his weight from foot to foot. Madison wanted to tell him to relax, that everything is fine. She didn’t. She couldn’t. She had no idea how things would turn out. “If you don’t feel well, we’ll do this later,” he said.
“It’s okay, dad.”
“All right,” Wheeler said. “Let’s start at the beginning. When did you get here?”
“I don’t know.” That was the truth.
“Before eight?”
“I didn’t get home from work until almost eight,” Adam said.
“One favor,” Wheeler said. “I want to ask Madison questions. I am going to talk to you next. For now, why don’t you wait by my car?”
“Does she need a lawyer?” Adam said.
“Are you requesting one?”
Adam looked at Madison, who shook her head.
“You stop answering questions any time you are uncomfortable, honey. You got it?”
“It’s okay, dad.”
Adam nodded as he turned and walked back toward Wheeler’s car.
“You’re not in any trouble,” Wheeler said.
Yet, Madison thought. “You can ask me whatever. I’m okay.”
“Good,” the investigator said. “We’ll do this as quickly as possible, okay? What time do you think you got to your mother’s house?”
“Had to be after eight.”
“You called nine-one-one at eight forty-seven,” she said.
“Okay.”
“Does that help you remember about what time you got here?”
“Before eight forty-seven.”
“How much before then?”
“I don’t know.”
“We can come back to it, okay? Why were you coming here? Your father tells me you moved out a few nights ago and were staying with him.”
“That’s right. I need my school books, and wanted my laptop,” she said.
“Why did you move out?”
“I didn’t like Oliver.”
“Why not?”
“He was a freeloader. My mom worked like crazy, and he put in a few hours a week at a store,” Madison said.
“Any other reasons?”
“He was ungrateful. Wanted us waiting on him all the time.”
“He ever hurt you in any way?”
“Never.” The firs
t lie.
“Did he ever touch you in a way that made you uncomfortable?”
“I’d of killed him if he did,” she said. It came out calm and confident sounding.
“What happened when you went into the house?”
“First, I was surprised my mom’s car was here. I thought she had to work,” she said. “I didn’t really want to see my mom.”
She didn’t think she’d cry. Her shoulders shook. She couldn’t hold back the tears.
Investigator Wheeler set a hand on her back and patted it softly. “It’s okay.”
“She kept calling and texting me, and I didn’t answer any of her messages. I know she just wanted to know why I moved out. I’m sure she wanted me to come back home. I just didn’t want to deal with it.”
“And you moved out because Oliver was lazy and ungrateful?”
“Yes.”
“Was it something new, his being lazy and ungrateful?”
Madison shook her head. “No.”
“Had he been living with the two of you for a while?”
“Yes.”
“So why now? What was the final straw that caused you to leave when you did?”
Madison felt like Wheeler was trying to back her into corners with her words. It was impossible to know how to answer questions. She wasn’t sure what to expect next, so she wasn’t sure how to respond. “When I got home from the hospital, he expected me to wait on him. Demanded it. I told my mother I didn’t like it or him. She took his side. So I left. I’m almost eighteen. I didn’t have to stay in a home where I wasn’t wanted,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound like some teen filled with overly dramatic angst. She did not want to accidently surrender motive.
“Had you been back to the house since you moved out?”
“It’s just been a few days. No. Today was my first time back,” she said.
“To get some of your things.”
Madison just nodded.
“When you went into the house, what happened?”
“I called out for my mom. She didn’t answer. I went into the kitchen,” she said, and felt the tears again. She sobbed, lowering her head.
Young Blood: The Nightbreed Saga: Book 1 Page 10
