I'll Justify My Reasons With Your Blood

Alex fidgeted as he tried to hold a cigarette to his lips and light it. Shannon was pacing across the concrete with concern etched deeply into his entire being. I really wished that there was some way to make both of them feel better, but my mind kept drawing blank.

Well, on one hand, it was obvious what was bothering Shannon. His brother turned into a homicidal vampire and his sister is the mind slave of his family’s greatest enemy.

But Alex was an entirely different story. His lip twitched as he held the cigarette between his lips, inhaling without needing to actually hold it there. His eyes were blurred with what looked like concern, but what could he possibly be worried about? It just didn’t make sense.

Shannon stopped pacing abruptly and glanced up at me. “I need to go find him,” he whispered.

I nodded and stepped over to him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and pulling him close to me. “It’s not to late,” I said. “You can still save them.”

“Thanks for your help, Mai.”

“Alright, will you just get the hell on with it already? We’ve been gone too long,” Alex grumbled, tossing his cancer stick on the ground and shoving the sole of his boot into the remains.

Ah, so that was what was bothering him. I suppose I couldn’t hold it against him. He wasn’t supposed to be the good guy, or be helping the good guys.

“Fine, we’ll leave now,” I sighed, leading the way back to the cathedral. Of course, this was the last place I wanted to go, but I owed him a favor, and getting caught wouldn’t exactly be such a thing.

The returning walk was silent and short. The narcissist part of my mind believed that this was because Alex was jealous of how I acted toward Shannon, though I doubt that this was true.

Regardless, we successfully crept back into the stone building and headed toward our room. One of Shadows’ vampires stopped Alex on the way, saying that they needed his help to move some things into a truck.

He reached forward and tugged on my arm before I continued walking. Curious, I turned around to see what the problem was. “Look, I need to help them with this. I want you to go back to the room and pack up our shit. I’ll be there soon.”

I laughed a little nervously. “I planned on it. Nothing’s going to happen to me, Alex.”

*Normal POV*

“Jared, this isn’t right. Take it from someone who still remembers what it’s like to be human…living is all that they have. Once you take that away from them, that’s it,” I pleaded.

He snorted. “Well, no kidding, Nikki. It’s called being dead.”

I stood up quickly, knocking the metallic chair over onto the ground. Ignoring the curious gazes of the interrupted coffee lovers around us, I approached him on the opposite side of the table and placed my hands on his shoulders.

“You helped me remember who I really was. Let me do the same for you. You’re my brother, Jared, and I can’t just sit back and watch you become this stranger.”

He sat there looking lost in contemplative thought as he slowly raised a hand up to rest on my own. Due to his consistent silence, I wasn’t really sure what he was thinking, but I could only hope for the best.

Meanwhile, a group of girls dressed in school uniforms was walking down the sidewalk, laughing obnoxiously. I could hear the heartbeats more than anything that was being said and felt my mouth water. If I felt this way, then I couldn’t imagine how horrible Jared must feel.

I’d give anything to help him overcome this, and with Shannon’s help we can get him back on track and prepared to fight Shadows.

His fingers suddenly wrapped around my hand. “You’ve got it all backwards, Nikki. I’m going to be the one to help you see that it’s not strange for vampires to drink from humans. We need to do this rather it’s morally acceptable or not.”

As the school girls walked past us, he leapt to his feet and managed to drag all of us to the small parking lot behind the strip mall. I stumbled out of his grip and landed hard on my ass, glancing up just in time to watch him bite into one of the girl’s necks, while the other two watched in terror.

Blood poured out in two relatively distinctive trails onto her white polo shirt, causing a sharp contrast in color. Her screams of protest and pain started out strong, but rapidly dulled down into a barely audible groan of pain before she went limp in his arms.

He turned to face me with blood smeared along his jaw line and a smirk on his face. “Your turn.”

My eyes widened once I realized what he meant. I began crab walking in scrambled fashion away from him and his victims. I shook my head violently, denying any possibility that this person in front of me was my brother. He couldn’t possibly be serious.

When his advances became too close for comfort, I forced myself up onto my feet and tried to run to make some more distance. Of course he was faster than me, for multiple reasons. He grabbed my arm and tugged me back into his chest, wrapping the arm around my body to keep me in place as he dragged me back to the girls.

“I really don’t know why you’re struggling so much. It’s a natural process.”

“Killing someone is never a natural process, regardless of what kind of human you are, living or dead.”

He growled deeply in the face of moral judgment and reached for one of the girls, who let out a shriek. “Fine, if you’re going to be that way, then I guess their deaths will be in vain.”

Before I could ask him to clarify what he meant, he tore his fangs through her flesh and repeated the process to her friend as well. He threw the dying, bleeding bodies toward me. I was always so clumsy, and an additional perk of eternal life did nothing to change that feature.

I tried to grab the bodies, but ended up falling to the pavement with them. Their blood spilled out quickly and drained onto me. Tears leaked from my eyes as I stared down at the opulent of blood and felt my fangs grow with aching ferocity.

*Syn’s POV*

The blurred edges of darkness surrounding my vision dissipated quicker than usual. I stood in the middle of the hallway, staring at the half open door at the end of the hall. Often times when experiencing the Curse, I black out, but that wasn’t the case this time…I remember going after Nikki, after drinking her blood.

I remember wanting nothing more than to kill her. And yet somehow, even under Shadows’ mind control, she still fled in fear. Bet he wasn’t expecting that to be an issue.

“Dude, what are you doing?” Zacky asked from behind.

I turned around to face him. “I was with Nikki…” I mumbled.

He craned his neck to look over my shoulder. “Where is she?”

I shrugged, “Beats me.”

“You know Shads wants to leave like…now.”

“She’ll come back.”

“Where did she go?”

“Away from me.”

Zacky knew the consequences of displeasing Shadows at such a crucial and early time in his career. And that was why he believed it to be crucial that I explain myself to Shadows.

Fucking teacher’s pet.

Shadows only assembled the core members for this meeting – Zacky, The Rev, Lillian, Johnny, and myself. “Let’s keep this simple,” he began. “What happened?”

“The Curse kicked in, that’s what happened.”

“That doesn’t explain where Nikki is.”

“She ran out the door because she was afraid of me and somehow still had enough common sense to understand the situation.”

“And let me guess,” he said in a false jovial tone, “you have no clue where she is!”

I subtly rolled my eyes and admitted to my faults.

“This is the last fucking set back. I didn’t think I’d have any spare time, but I’m about to make some just to remind you how important all of this is.”

“Is that a threat?” I scoffed, standing up and welcoming his attempt.

He growled in response, allowing his inner monster to show itself. He jumped across the table and tackled me to the ground, keeping me pinned with the sheer weight of his body while his hands searched for something.

Suddenly, steam flew up off of my body as the holy water burned through my flesh. Shadows threw the glass to the ground once he emptied his contents before he shoved a small piece of wood through the same location of the water burn.

“Don’t you ever go against me,” he growled.

With one last thrusting kick to the torso, he turned on his heel and returned to his seat. I, on the other hand, remained on the ground until I could hear my flesh regenerating.

Upon returning to the table, Shadows glared at me for a while before he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Johnny leaned forward to offer his opinion. “To be fair,” he said, “we’ve all experienced the inconveniences that the Curse causes. Syn didn’t have any control. None of us ever do.”

Honestly, I never would’ve expected him to be the philosophical one.

“And you couldn’t mention that sooner, short shit?” Rev sneered.

But Shadows seemed to buy into the reasoning, nevertheless. “We are moving in exactly one hour. I’m going to need her back with us by the time those sixty minutes are up. Obviously you’re going to have to go look for her since this is your doing, but I’d like someone else to go too so the job gets done quicker.”

Shadows scanned the table, in search of someone to be my partner, as if I really needed one.

And then the excuses began pouring out.

“I’m already in charge of package arrival,” Zacky said.

“I’m on dog duty,” The Rev shrugged.

“I’m arranging security and law enforcement,” Johnny replied.

This only left one person who had yet to offer any excuse. All eyes in the room turned to Lillian. She shrunk back in her seat, knowing what was going to be asked of her. Shadows gave her a long, hard look.

“Rev, do you trust that your sister has recovered from her bad betrayal habit?”

The Rev shot a side-glance to his sister riddled with unknown meaning. He looked back at Shadows and nodded. “I think she’s been cured,” he grinned lopsidedly.

Lillian smiled weakly. Shadows didn’t look too sold on the verdict, but what choice did he have? She was the only one who wasn’t serving a purpose at the given time. Lucky me.

*Mai’s POV*

I tried to take this brief moment of time to relax after throwing Alex’s clothes into his backpack, but I was too restless. Staring at the ceiling wasn’t entertaining enough, and I wasn’t desperate enough.

But aside from not wanting to lie down, I jolted upward anyway once I heard footsteps outside the door. Cautiously, I tiptoed toward the door and wrapped my fingers around the knob with a playful grin. Alex was going to be scared shitless.

Once the footsteps were close enough to the door, I ripped it open ready to shout ‘surprise,’ though instead found my smile crumbling into bits at the sight of an incorrect presence before me. It was Alex’s henchman, Brandon.

He took a step closer, successfully maintaining his stone cold look in the process. “Shadows may be a little preoccupied with his plans and the move, but I have all the time in the world right now. That makes me a very observant individual, naturally. And I couldn’t help but notice that someone spent some time outdoors today.”

I scoffed, playing off the act of innocence. “What are you implying?”

He stepped all the way into the room and closed the door behind him. “I am implying that you somehow managed to convince Alex to break the rules, and I don’t really appreciate that.”

“Alex is the leader of your pack. I’m pretty sure he can do whatever he wants.”

“No, not in this case. Tell me, Mai, have you ever been attacked by a werewolf?”

“Possibly. But that’s hardly your business.”

He held his hands up in defense. “Hey, I’m only asking because the way I see it, either you have no idea what it’s like, or one of them did attack you and you’re just stupid enough to not take it seriously.”

“I’m sorry that I’m resilient and can take care of myself,” I sneered, trying to make my way past him.

He placed a hand on my shoulder and smirked. “Allow me to treat you to the experience of a real wolf attack.”

Brandon jumped back into a crouched position and began his transformation. Although he shifted forms quickly, his time was nothing compared to Alex.

He stood before me on all fours with brown colored fur, yellow teeth, black eyes, and ingrown claws on his paws. He growled deeply, opening his mouth to allow thick drops of saliva to fall onto the floor.

Within a flash, he pounced on top of me. I hit the ground hard, and the force of his attack kindly allowed all ten of his claws to embed themselves just above my chest. I bit down on my lip to silence a pained scream that so desperately wanted to escape my lips. Showing him pain would only be giving him what he wanted.

Brandon tore his overgrown nails out of my shoulders and placed a paw on each side of me before his face leaned in. Dampness covered my shirt near the lower torso, and I wasn’t sure whether that was from his drool or my blood.

“Now I’m going to do what Alex should’ve done,” he growled, speaking in deep, demonic voice. I could barely even understand what he said.

He barred his fangs and closed in on my neck. He extended his jaw slightly to accommodate the tightness of the space before he clamped his mouth shut, my left shoulder stuck in the middle and the pain far too unbearable to hold back.

Tears accumulated along my eyelids and blurred everything around me. That being said, my hearing was still intact. I could hear what I assumed to be the door being busted down from behind Brandon.

A growl resounded in the room before something landed on top of Brandon, thus tearing him off of me. Immediately, I jumped back into a sitting position, leaning up against the bed with a hand clamped over the bloody, torn skin that was barely hanging onto my body.

There was another wolf in the room now, but it wasn’t just any wolf. It was Alex. And he just saved my life.

*Shadows’ POV*

The day was almost over already and we had yet to move out of this cathedral. Syn and the others will have to just meet us there once they capture that treacherous bitch, again.

I had Zacky spread the word to the troops and in less than ten minutes, everyone was standing outside ready to move out. The castle was only a couple miles from where we were. That distance was nothing when you had the kind of speed we did.

Besides, it would probably be smart to reveal ourselves to the humans and let them see who they will be obeying soon enough.

The sun began setting just as we arrived at the castle. Since I was the leader, it only made sense that I took the first steps inside. The drawbridge was lowered and I walked across the moat of black waters and into the castle’s grand foyer.

But as soon as I stepped one foot into the room, my body became engulfed in flames. I grunted in pain, yelling at the troops to collect some water, though all they kept doing was running around like headless chickens.

Biting my way through the pain of my skin being melted off the bones, I retreated from the castle and stood on the bridge, ready to jump into the stream. Yet, the moment I stepped out of the house, the flames ceased.

Aggravated, I grabbed the first vampire nearest me and chucked him as far into the large room as I could. He too lit on fire, even in midair, and remained on fire as he landed on the floor, burned to ashes.

“What the hell is going on?” I growled.

“It’s like some kind of spell,” Zacky said.

The Rev snickered and pointed up at one of the highest balconies. “I think I found your problem.”

I followed his lead and saw a familiar face, much to my distaste. “I should’ve fucking known,” I mumbled, glaring up at Oli Sykes.

I hadn’t seen him in over fifty years. And I would’ve preferred to keep it that way.

*Shannon’s POV*

My mind raced with possibilities of where Jared could be, but each one ended up being dead ends. The sky was getting dark now and I didn’t exactly want to be out on the streets with Shadows’ men on patrol.

As I headed back toward the beach, I kept my eyes all over the place, both in search of my family and my enemy. Much to my surprise, I did find one of the two sitting in the sand. It was the wolf that was with Mai earlier – Alex.

I stepped into the sand ready to approach him. In contrast with his rugged and exhausted appearance, his head snapped toward my direction with high alert.

Upon taking a closer look, I saw that he was covered in claw-induced scratches that were still bleeding and barely healing. I wasn’t exactly sure what to say, but he made up for the silence on his own.

“You are the last person that I want to see right now, but I couldn’t be more happier.”