I'll Justify My Reasons With Your Blood

My fingers quickly wrapped around the pole that I had been confined to only moments ago. It felt as if that was the only thing protecting me now, which is definitely not a good sign. I strained my eyes a little bit so I could attempt to see through the darkness. It turns out the other person that had joined us was the freakishly tall guy – the Rev, I think.

“Come down to join the fun?” Shadows asked over his shoulder.

The Rev laughed sadistically as he finally stepped out of the dark and next to Shadows, “Of course I am! After hearing that news, I should’ve gotten down here sooner. I want a piece of our new human friend before she gets too beat out.”

I was growing slowly aggravated with their calling me ‘human’ when that’s what they are too! What, do they think that they’re better than me or something? No – they’re probably just insane and tell themselves that they’re some kind of special nonexistent species, like a vampire or something. I didn’t even realize it, but I had ended up glaring at them the entire time that I was mentally laughing about their insanity.

“Aw, what’s the matter princess? Did I say something that offended you?” the Rev sneered, talking to me as if I am a little child.

I was momentarily caught off guard by the fact that he even spoke to me, after simply reading my facial expression. “Yeah you did actually. Why the hell do you demented weirdos keep calling me a human, when that’s what you are yourselves?”

They both burst out in fits of laughter. “You…think….we’re HUMAN?!” Rev snorted.

“You must be stupider than I gave you credit for. You’re so naïve to the world around you,” Shadows added.

An involuntarily blush crept across my cheeks as I grew hot with embarrassment. “W-what are you talking about?” I asked sheepishly.

Nobody answered me until they had relieved themselves of their laughter. “I suppose we could tell you a little bit of what you’re unaware of, since you humored us with your insignificance,” Shadows said, nodding towards the Rev.

“Basically, you are a lowly mortal human. Up until just an hour ago, this was unknown to us. We assumed that, like the rest of the Leto family, you were of vampyric descent. But apparently you are the only human in your entire family history. The Letos are rivals with our gang, led by Shadows. And now, we find out that our little trump card will be much easier to use against poor, defenseless Jared Leto.”

My first reaction, of course, was to just laugh in their faces at the absurdity of what I was just told. But I held myself back for a moment – it could be true. Why else would it seem like Jared and Shannon never did anything at home and always go out late at night? Why else was I kept away from the rest of my family? Why else would these freaks be taking chomps at my neck the other night? It all kind of fits together now…

So, instead of continuing the verbal combat with them, I said to myself, “Why the hell did this have to happen to me?”

I felt my eyes water up and my body slide down the pole until I landed on the floor. If none of this had happened, I’d still be living in my blind world thinking that everything is alright. But, now that I know the truth behind it all…I’m scared, worried, nervous, and alone. I’m the reject of the family. How does that even happen? How can one person out of thousands not get the gene of immortality? This was all just way too much for me to take in at once…especially, hearing it from them of all people.

“She looks overwhelmed,” Rev noted.

Shadows nodded, “You’re right. I guess that’s a sign that it’s time to stop screwing around and get to the fun already!” They both snickered, but I couldn’t dare look at them.

I felt like I was in my own little world…just thinking about everything I’ve been told. I didn’t have time to deal with their shit right now. Shadows whispered something to the Rev that I couldn’t nor wanted to hear. Avoiding them right now was one of my utmost priorities – but it was incredibly hard to do when all I could feel was their eyes staring holes through me.

It was annoying me way more than it probably should have, but I still allowed myself to glare up at them and find out what the hell was so important that they felt the need to stare me down. I regretted it the minute I looked up at them. As soon as my eyes made contact with Shadows, I couldn’t look away from his piercing hazel eyes. It was as if some sort of force was pulling me into him and not allowing me to look away.

“I’d say it’s doing a good job. And how long have you had this power now?” the Rev asked, impressed.

“Only five weeks so far, but I figured someone as easy and weak as Nikki would make a perfect test subject.” What was he testing me for, a staring contest or something?

“Make her do something,” Rev urged, like an excited little kid.

Shadows nodded, then stared further into my soul, as if he was inside my mind, and I could actually feel him in there. “Stand up, and walk over to me.”

I felt my legs twitch as they began to comply to his demand. But, my brain (which wanted my body to sit down) was fighting against the foreign signals being sent through my body. I used my hands as best as I could to push my legs down and force them to remain in a seated position.

Judging by the look in his eyes, which was the only thing I could see, he was getting frustrated with my involvement. “NOW!” he shouted suddenly, and before my mind could even begin to protest, my body went flying upward and toward him.

“There’s a good girl,” he said, reaching out for me when I got close enough.

Still, I couldn’t look away from him. I tried to say something to him, along the lines of ‘Stop controlling my mind,’ but the minute I opened my mouth, he said, “Shut up.” And you know what happened? None of those words left my mouth.

I finally got within his reach and he grabbed onto my arms and spun me around so that I was pushed up against his chest. The eye contact was finally broken and I breathed a sigh of relief, glad to be in control of myself again. Note to self: Never look at him directly in the eyes.

“So now that that’s over with, why don’t we get back to our original mission? I’m feeling like…a game of baseball?” Shadows asked casually.

The Rev pretended to ponder the idea for a moment before saying, “That sounds fabulous. I call being batter!”

He ran over a rusted cabinet in the far corner of the room and returned with a baseball glove and a couple of metallic baseball bats. Are they seriously about to play a game like baseball in this dim, drenched basement? That’s just stupid.

I had finally noticed that Shadows still maintained his grip on me, despite the fact that the ‘game’ was about to begin as the Rev stepped into a batting position. Shadows used his free hand to slip on the glove. “Remember,” he said across the room to the Rev, “three strikes and you’re out!” He nodded in response.

I felt Shadows take a step back while holding me in place. “And now for the first pitch,” he announced. In that moment, I realized in horror that I was the ball they would be playing with. His arms flexed as he pushed forward and sent me flying across the basement floor, ready to trip over myself at any given moment and screaming my lungs out. I shielded my face instinctively as I got closer and closer to the Rev who was position to swing his bat at me. By some miracle, he missed.

Instead of meeting with a bat, I was rammed up against the cold concrete wall, totally out of breath. I cringed as I felt Shadows rip me away from my beloved wall and drag me back to the opposite end. He repeated the process, and the Rev once again missed. He only needs to miss once more and then this horrible game will end.

Shadows gripped my arms for the third time now, leaving behind fingertip-shaped bruises. He sent me flying across the room again, and this time as I approached the Rev, it was different. He was ready to make contact now. Just as his bat was about to smash through my skull, I moved my body to the left, and ended up sending myself flying off course and into a collection of spider webs.

“You’re out!” Shadows laughed as he did a poor impression of an umpire.

But that didn’t matter – seeing as I heard myself scream out all the sudden. No matter how hard I tried to stand back up, those sticky webs kept me down and I felt tiny legs crawling across my flesh, digging their teeth in and sucking blood. Spiders are absolutely disgusting and I was freaking out right about now. “Help! Help me – get me out of here!” I pleaded, feeling pathetic for asking them to save me.

The feeling of those spiders all over me was just about enough to make me want to puke. I was getting more and more nauseated by the second. My body isn’t going to be able to take much more of this. After just barely dodging a bashing of my skull and now being eaten by spiders, my heart was about ready to beat out of my chest. I looked up and saw the Rev towering above me.

He crouched down and said, “You know, maybe if you hadn’t caused me to strike out, you wouldn’t have landed in this situation.” He then stood back up and laughed down at me, probably amused by the fact that I thought he had come to help me.

Frustrated, I pushed myself forward, harder than I had before and tumbled out of the webs, brushing all those vile creatures off of me, and groaning as I felt all of the itchy bites surface.

I nearly cried as Shadows said, “Oh good you’re out again. My turn to bat!”

The Rev ran over and grabbed onto my arms as he dragged me to his end of the playing field. Judging by the more accurate positioning of Shadows’ stance, I have a feeling that he won’t miss. I swallowed the lump in the back of my throat as I was sent flying forward. My arms flew up in front of my face and my eyes squeezed shut. There was no denying that he was going to make contact. And I’d rather be oblivious.

The hard and heavy metallic bat came in contact with my stomach, and almost immediately, a huge stream of blood escaped from my throat and splattered onto the ground while the remains dribbled down my face. My stomach went numb and the breath got hitched in the back of my throat. I crumbled to the ground clutching my stomach, as if that would ease the pain. I cried out when the Rev returned to drag me back over to the ‘pitching mound.’

“Please,” I gasped, “I can’t go through that again.”

He shrugged, “Oh well.”

Then he spun me around so that I was facing him, sending me flying towards Shadows backwards. Tears left my eyes before I even reached him. The bat made direct contact with my spine and was swung with enough force to send my body flying across the room and back into that damn pole from earlier.

I had hit my forehead on the pole and winced as I felt large gushes of blood erupt from the new wound like lava flowing down from an active volcano.

“HOME RUN!” the Rev shouted as he ran over and pulled me up off the ground to meet up with Shadows again who had, thank God, put down his bat.

“Alright,” Shadows said eyeing the blood on my face, “let’s go get something to drink.”

They led me to a room upstairs that looked more like an indoor garden. I heard what sounded like a stream of running water. It was kind of comforting, in a weird way. It reminded me of one time when Jared and Shannon took me to the zoo a long time ago. That was all I needed – a happy memory to latch onto and use to distract myself from this predicament. Unfortunately, Shadows had to pull me back to reality.

“Do you like our lovely indoor river?” he asked, pushing me toward it.

Taking one glance at it, I could tell it was no ordinary river…it was red. There’s no way it could be made of…

“How about a little fun fact? The river you see here flows with all of the blood of every single person we’ve killed. We suck them of as much blood as we need, then we completely drain their bodies of all blood into this filtered river. Impressive, isn’t it?”

I felt some stomach acid crawling up my esophagus, and tempting me to let it out all over the place. But I was too disgusted to even throw up. “You are repulsive,” I growled, my throat raw and scratchy from all the screaming.

“Is that so?” he asked, sitting down behind me, making me incredibly nervous. “You look thirsty, why don’t you have a drink?” he said, gripping the back of my neck and dunking me under the stream of blood, while holding onto my neck still and keeping me under.

Unlike water, this stream was thick and tasted just like a tarnished penny. I couldn’t help but scream under the blood, gasping for air. I felt like I was choking as the thick liquid entered my mouth. Finally, he pulled me back up as I choked on the blood that had got inside.

“Tastes good, doesn’t it? Well, now that you’re all bloody, I say we go visit the others. It’s about time we share you with the rest of the gang. I’m sure they’d love to have their fair share of fun with you,” he snickered.

Right then and there, I passed out…practically too exhausted to live anymore. What else could they possibly do to me? Apparently they can do a lot when you’re unconscious…