Trembling With the Strings

The Beat Beneath The Blood

Gracie’s P.O.V.
I groaned, falling to my knees as I saw where my legs had carried me: to the ruins of Lady’s collapsed cult building. I had a feeling that my legs had served a higher power: my demented son. I shook my head, fighting away the tears that threatened to form.

I’m thirsty.

“No!” I hissed, my hands clutching grass as I aw a puddle of blood slowly being absorbed into the dirt beside me.

I can make your life a living hell, Mommy. You tried to kill me. Do you think Daddy will like that so much? I’d think about that if I were you.

“Stop it!” I whimpered, glancing up to the ruin before me. “You can talk to Darius?”

Yes. Why?

“Can you tell him to come get me?”

I will not be used as a puppet for you to toy with!

“But we need Daddy to save us. I can’t go on, baby boy. I just can’t.”

He was silent, and I sighed. I tore the grass from its roots in the ground and stood up, pressing my palm to my forehead in an attempt to ward away the dizziness that accompanied the action.

He said they’re coming. Bryce is going to help kill Lyndell.

I made a face. It figured that He would have to come, too. As long as he didn’t do anything funny, it would be fine. I just wanted to be at home, to be sleeping in my bed again. Hopefully Darius could protect me while I was just lying there, because God knows he couldn’t help me any other time!

I pushed a hand through my bands out of frustration. I shook my head, and they fell into place. I couldn’t help but wonder how Dray would feel if I chose to tell him that our child was disturbed and terrified me to no end. I bet that, if he didn’t depend on my body for survival, he would have killed me himself. I couldn’t rightfully blame him, because I had tried to kill him. I placed a hand on my stomach, trying to silently make amends as I searched the endless wood surrounding me.

Everything looked the same, but I didn’t want to stay near the wreck any longer. Lyndell and my mother had not shown up yet, but I certainly didn’t want to wait around for them. I stepped over the various bodies, which were twisted up in agony. Necks were snapped, and arms were bent at awkward angles. The warped corpses were lucky they had limbs at all, for the rest of them did not even have a head on their shoulders.

I walked quicker with each snap of a twig, paranoid. I had gone through so much because of my child, and I was not about to lose at the very end. It was like I was running through a dark tunnel, and the light at the end was dancing out of my reach. I stumbled through the dense forest, aware that with each step I was becoming more lost. The only good news I could think of was that there had been a forest lining one edge of the park I had been in earlier.

The good news failed in comparison to the bad news, however. I was lost, but Lyndell was probably toying with me. He would surely show up the second I reached my doorstep, and then he would snatch me away and murder me. For revenge, my mother would slaughter Darius and take Marty and the boys back home.

This was all Darius’ fault anyway! If he had just left me alone and in ignorant bliss, I could have been at home. Sure, I would have been beaten by my father a few times, but I could have survived a couple more years. I could have finished my education, gotten a dead-end job and lived the American dream. I could have married a nice human boy and had a non-demented family with him. I could have avoided being almost killed fifty-some times!

What’s worse was that I had started to depend on him. I had started to believe that he was actually put on Earth to protect me. Good thing I had been set straight! Sure, he was looking for me, but that accomplished nothing. I would have died if I had done what he had wanted. He said he wanted to be able to protect me, but he was doing a horrible job of that! Our unborn son was keeping me safer than him. I had thought he would have torn up Michigan to find me, but I had not seen him at all. And why didn’t he just read my thoughts? When I was with Lady, I had been begging him to save me. But he had ignored me! That’s love for you, I suppose. My faith was being sucked out of me with each passing second, and I suddenly understood what Darius had said.

“I gave up believing a long time ago. Why don’t you get that? I’m done dancing around in Fate’s hands like some little toy puppet! I’ve taken things into my own hands…”

A sob escaped my throat as I tripped over a rotting log, and I didn’t have time to catch myself as I fell into a puddle of mud. My hands were scraped up and the mud in my cuts burned, but that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. What was I even doing? Sure, I could go on living, but nothing could erase what I had seen or what I had done. Nightmares would haunt me forever, and then when our kid was born… I would have to stare into his cold eyes, forever remembering the hatred I had instilled in him before he was even born.

I threw my face into my hands as my shoulders shook with my sobs. I had always been told that I was so childish, so naïve. I had always had faith in the world; I had believed that good things happened to good people; I had thought God actually cared about me.

But why should He? I was just another girl in the world. There was nothing special about me. Maybe death would be a gift compared to what I had been through in the past few months. Darius had told me to stop with the bullshit I had been preaching, and that was a good idea. How could I go on preaching and lecturing about hope and faith when I, myself, did not believe in it? Exactly, I couldn’t.

I wiped my hands on my tattered jeans, wiping them clean of the wet mud. Pushing myself to my feet, I continued through the muck while wiping my eyes of any remaining tears. I barked out profanity as I stumbled again but caught myself. I was tired and hungry; I wanted to get home and forget everything; I just wanted to pass out. I thought about sleeping right there, but I didn’t think my child would let me get away with it.

Another twig snapped under my foot, and a deer darted away from me. I watched dully as it pranced away, as if it knew where it was going. It was probably going home to its family, and I honestly envied it. Maybe that was the exhaustion talking, or I’d just gone crazy. I didn’t know, but I honestly had stopped caring.

“I think this has gone on long enough,” Lyndell told me, dropping down in front of me.

I gasped lightly, backing away.

“He won’t hurt you,” my mother promised, enfolding me in her arms.

“No!” I screamed in her face, ducking out of her arms and running after the fleeing animal. Take me with you, deer!

“Gracie, this is ridiculous! We’re faster than you, remember?” Lyndell called uninterestedly after me.

I didn’t dignify him with a response, but I did look behind me. Lyndell and my mother were nowhere to be seen, and I cried out when I ran into something—someone.

Arms wrapped around me, and I looked up to see Darius staring down at me. His face was twisted up in agony as I stared up at him through my cold eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” he murmured, holding me. I stood still, unresponsive, as tears spilled out of my eyes. “I’ll kill him. You may not be able to outrun him, but he can’t outrun me.”

I shrugged slightly. I just wanted to go home, why did he not see that? Bryce gave me a sympathetic look, but then he glanced around, as if scanning the forest.

“Maybe we should get her home first. They’d be idiots to think that a wimp like Lynn and a newborn vampire stand a chance against us.”

Darius helped me onto his back, so he could run faster. And the world melted away.