I'll Justify My Reasons With Your Blood

Phone call after phone call, I listened to Shannon get rejected by several of the higher ups in our family. “What the hell kind of royal family can’t even get up off their asses to go save one of their family members?” I sighed.

Shannon hung up the phone once more. “They claim that a human isn’t worth the trouble, and the fact that she isn’t even immortal denies her the right of being considered a Leto,” Shannon bitterly explained.

“If I were king right now, officially,” I said, “they’d all be right on the front lines going into battle to save her.”

Glancing down at the spiral notebook of contacts, Shannon informed me, “Dude, there are only four people left on this list. They all have to say yes for us to stand a chance at going up against Shadows and invading his mansion."

I nodded grimly, knowing that those four people were our only hope.

While Shannon took the time to determine our fate, I turned around and focused on the computer screen before me. I found some mapping website, similar to Map Quest, and type in everything that I knew about the place, things such as its general location, and special features. A couple of results came up, but not too many for us to handle.

I stared at the pictures of each house, both the inside and outside photos, and tried to replay anything that Nikki had seen in their house. I distinctly remember her seeing and being in an old, undecorated cellar. I narrowed down the results to only those that had cellars. And to my surprise, there was only one that matched that request. I quickly wrote down the address and ran over to the other side of the room.

Shannon was still on the phone, so to find out if he was doing any better, I held out one hand in the shape of a thumbs up and the other in the shape of a thumbs down. He gave me a thumbs up, which definitely made me feel a ton better. We got the house pin-pointed now and we’ve got an army of some sort.

I was feeling so confident, that I even decided to take a risk. I was going to write a letter to Nikki, telling her that we’re coming for her. And I’m going to stick it right in their mailbox. That way I’ll get close enough to their house to observe the place, and make sure that Nikki is going to be ok, and have some hope to hold on to.

By the time I finished typing and printing the letter, Shannon was finally done with the phone calls. “What do we have?” I eagerly asked.

“All four of them agreed. What can I say, I am the master of persuasion,” he smirked.

I rolled my eyes, “Yeah, tell that to the other 20 people who turned you down. So who are they?”

“Uncle Jack, Tomo, Matt, and Gage.”

“Better than nothing, I guess,” I said, while sealing the envelope.

“I’m gonna go run this letter to the post office,” I said as I headed up stairs.

Shannon followed me up and turned on the TV. The war was just about to begin, and damn was I ready for it.

*Normal POV*

After walking through the house about three times, watching two movies, and eating an apple, I was entirely exhausted. And you really can’t blame me, I mean hell I’m surprised I was able to walk, let alone do all those things. I had fallen asleep on the couch in the living room, and I was startled awake when I heard the door open and slam shut.

The clock on the wall said that it was around 11 AM. Damn, they’ve been gone at least 8 hours by now – not that I was complaining. They all stumbled around in the kitchen, drunk most likely. Shadows walked into the room and found me. “We are going to bed now, so don’t try anything stupid. Remember, you’ve still got that collar on,” he warned, before walking up the stairs with the others.

Wow, today keeps getting better and better! If only I could get this collar off, then I’d be able to escape no problem.

I could only deal with staring at the walls in the living room for so long, so I decided to go into the kitchen, hoping that some food would magically appear. Instead, I found something else – a stack of envelops. Hmm, it would be pretty entertaining to see what kind of mail people like them would receive.

There were mostly bills and magazines, but one envelop in particular caught my eye. It was addressed by hand and had a small symbol in the top left corner…it was the symbol for Mars, Jared’s favorite symbol. This is a letter from him! I quickly ripped the envelope open and read the typed up letter:

Dear Nikki,

You can’t even begin to imagine how sorry Shannon and I are for letting you out of our sights and risking your safety. We thought we were protecting you by keeping the family secret from you, but it ended up making things worse. As you may have heard, Shadows and his gang are our enemies, and trying to overtake the vampire thrown. You’ve got to stay strong and stay as far away from them if possible.

We’ve got an army forming here and we’re just waiting for the right time to meet up with you. I’ve got a pretty good idea of where they’ve got you and I should be able to find you. Our meeting point is probably going to be at a halfway point between their house and ours, so I’d say somewhere in downtown Huntington, like at a music store or something. As always, be careful and know that we’ll be together soon.

–Jared

Why would he risk sending me a letter like this? I mean, hell more than likely one of the others would’ve been the one to open the letter, seeing as this is their house and their mail. Hmm, he must be suggesting for me to escape! Why else would he tell me all that information? He did say to stay as far away from them as possible.

Now, obviously I would’ve wanted to escape with or without Jared telling me to do so, but now that I had this extra boost of motivation, I decided that now would be the best time to do so. Making as little noise as possible, I searched around the kitchen for something sharp enough to cut through the leather of this collar. I was able to weaken it with a large steak knife, but then I was lucky enough to find some incredibly sharp pliers/scissor like object. The loosened leather was easily cut once I used this newfound tool.

Since the patio door was the closest to me, I wasted no time unlocking and opening the door. The wooden deck was two stories tall and covered what I assumed would be some lower level area leading into the basement. As far as I’m concerned, no one would be down in the basement, because no one walked anywhere near the stairs to get in that direction. I took my chances and walked down the creaking wooden stairs.

As soon as my feet touched the grass, a voice interrupted my actions. “And just where do you think you’re going?” he asked.

I turned around to see Johnny sitting on a lawn chair below the deck. I smirked to myself, just thinking how easy this is going to be. “I’m leaving this hell hole once and for all,” I said smugly, “and there’s nothing your little self can do to stop me. Besides how did you even get down here?”

He rolled his eyes, “Teleportation is my power. And for your information, I may be short, and you may be able to outrun me…but I’ve got this.” He moved his head to the right a little bit to reveal a large red EMERGENCY button behind him.

“I’d start running if I were you,” he grinned as he slammed his fist into the button, causing loud sirens to blare on the inside of the house. Damn it, he could’ve at least given me a running start!

I began running faster than I’ve ever ran before…leaping over bushes and jumping fences. My heart banged up against my ribcage and sweat dripped down my face. I wasn’t really all that afraid at this point, I mean this was all because of Jared’s request, so he must have something planned. Plus, I’ve gotten nearly half a mile from the house already and there are plenty of places around here to hide in case they do somehow catch up to me.

It’s times like these when it really would’ve been handy to remember I was going up against vampires here, not just your average humans. Something zoomed past me, feeling like a fast breeze of air. Unfortunately, that’s not exactly what it was. I was running so fast that I couldn’t exactly slow down very quickly. I ended up skidding right into Shadows, who smirked before wrapping his strong arm around my torso, forbidding any more movement.

“Let me…go…I was so…close,” I breathed out.

Within the blink of an eye, the other four appeared, closing in on us. “You know,” Shadows said, “I always thought you’d be one of the smart humans who knows when she’s too over her head to try something like this. Hmm, guess I was wrong.”

“I guess so,” I snottily replied.

“Does this mean it’s torture time?” the Rev asked eagerly.

Shadows paused for a moment, “But of course. And this time I think we’ll get enough blood from her to add to our little atrium stream.” The guys chuckled as I was dragged back to that hellish mansion. What have I gotten myself into?

The guys anxiously walked down the basement stairs to the dungeon-like area that I had first woken up in. A chain was locked around my neck and my body was suspended mid-air from a beam in the ceiling. My hands flew right to the chain, scratching at it in hopes of unlocking it, while my legs flailed in the air, trying their hardest to keep those sadistic bastards far away from me.

“Don’t even try and do something to me,” I warned, “I know Jared is working his ass off to save me, and you’ll be sorry once he gets to you!”

They all burst out into fits of maniacal laughter. “You’re insane if you think Jared alone could stop us,” Zacky snorted.

“I don’t think, I know,” I growled.

“Ok, enough of the open, empty threats,” Synyster interrupted, annoyance in his voice.

Shadows nodded, “Agreed. Let’s get a little blood flowing.”

Each of them pulled a shiny knife from out behind their back. Oh God, this was going to be it – this is the end for me. They’re going to stab me to death, suck all my blood out and be done with me! My eyes widened with each step they took, getting closer and closer to issuing my demise.

“W-what are you doing with t-those knives?” I asked, nervously.

“We’re going to trace all of your bones with this knife. Most of us never passed anatomy, so we figured we’d use you as an extra credit assignment.”

“Why don’t you just fucking stab me and get it over with?!” I shouted.

Shadows grinned, “We’re not ready to kill you…yet.”

“Oh so you’re just going to take me to the brink of death until that time comes?” I rolled my eyes.

“Think whatever you want,” the Rev shrugged.

Nearly all space on any side of me was being closed inward. I didn’t notice it at first, but my body had begun shaking with nerves. Shadows began the process by lifting his knife high in the air and tracing it from my shoulder down my right arm.

Once he reached my wrist, he made individual lines extending out to each finger. The tip of the knife had been driven deep enough into the layers of flesh that I was able to watch it separate the skin right down the middle. Blood popped out of the continuous cut and trailed after the knife as if it was trying to chase after it.

Since I was kind of on the skinny side, his slicing of my hand hurt the most because the bones kind of seemed to stick out of my skin…meaning the knife practically grazed up against the bone itself in that case. My clothes were ripped off and Synyster walked over to my backside. The tip of his knife began right under my hair and slowly proceeded down my neck, over to my shoulder bones, tracing the exact shape of them.

Then he went down my spine, tracing every single part of it. His knife slipped in even deeper than Shadows’ had, which hurt even more, seeing as he was scraping against nerves and such. My back soon became rather wet as blood trickled from the countless slices of traced bone in my back.

Zacky took my left arm, while Johnny and the Rev began working on my legs. Meanwhile, I tried to keep my mind off of what was slowly happening to my body but there were two things bothering me. One: the sound of skin ripping and blood dripping endlessly to the ground. Two: the fact that all that was left was my torso and face.

Synyster, instead of taking his knife out of me and moving to his next destination, decided to retrace the long slit down my back, making the cut deeper. He made his way up over to my front side, staring me directly in the eye. He was going for my face.

“Let’s just pretend I’m a plastic surgeon,” he laughed, “and I’m about to reconstruct your face.”

I tried to back away from his knife…but it was near impossible. He started at my forehead, making a sideways “D” shape. Then he made slanted lines going toward my nose, over my cheek bones. He got lazy afterward and just made a vertical slice down the top of my nose. And lastly, he traced my jawline with his knife, dragging it nice and slow, making sure I could feel every damn point of pain.

My breathing had gotten pretty heavy, while my head seemed to grow lighter from loss of blood. “And now for the final part,” Shadows said, causing my eyes to shoot open.

“No,” I pleaded, “I can’t take it anymore.”

“Oh, really?” he asked before sending his fist flying into my face, causing more blood to squirt out of the previous wounds. “I don’t give a shit of you can or can’t take it. Maybe you should’ve considered that before trying to run.”

He brought his knife down and dug deep into my collar bone, causing me to scream out as the blade roughly dug into the bone, scraping away at it. He then proceeded to trace my ribcage and hip bones, making it look almost as if my insides had been turned outside and you could see inside of me. I must look like an awful, bloody mess right about now.

I had always known that these assholes would never hold back when punishing me, but still I never expected to lose this much blood. My limbs stiffened as the spilt blood began to dry and crust over my skin. Fresh blood continued to flow over the old, practically dying my entire body red.

Zacky and Johnny laid down below and closed their eyes, lounging as the blood dripped into their mouths. Shadows placed a couple of containers below me as well, probably to collect some blood for that eerie and unnatural stream of blood. My clear tears mixed with the scattered droplets of crimson liquid on my face, most likely making it look like I was even crying blood.

The world started spinning and I swear it felt as if I was in a nightmare…and that this never even happened. But wait, what happens if I lose too much blood? If they don’t plan on letting me die…then how would I stay alive? They aren’t in charge of death itself.

The Rev’s eyes were burning into me from behind, and I couldn’t help but wonder why the hell he was doing that. I heard movement, so I glanced over my shoulder and saw him whispering something to Synyster, who then walked over to me with the biggest, sickest smirk on his face.

“Aw, princess, if you’re worried about dying before we’re through with you, then I think I know of a way to save your life.”