Crimson (Book One)

It’s been two weeks since Jett’s death and it’s been the worst two weeks of my life. I walked around lifelessly every day, training as told by Felix and Sandra, being ignored by all those who use to be my best friends. Corbin’s large smirk followed me where ever I went; I was indeed banned from Jett’s funeral but was told by Taylor everything that happened. I stayed silent; I knew my mother was worried, as was Taylor, but nothing could be done, I was blamed for Jett’s death and I couldn’t win against Corbin, it was useless to think I could.

Today I walked out of the training hall, as usual, when I was suddenly grabbed and thrown into a dark room, suddenly a bright white light was switched on and Corbin loomed in front of me.
“I told you I would win Charlotte, your losing everyone, it’s a shame Jett had to die, but that really IS your fault you see; I told you not to tell ANYONE about what happened that mission and yet you tell your mother and Taylor, so I held my part of the bargain, you knew the consequence and now you have to lie in it. I killed Jett and you take the blame and soon I shall be rid of you forever, mark my words Charlotte, I will kill you” Corbin said forcefully taking me by the top of my leather jacket before throwing me to the floor, as he left, the lights shut off and I stayed still sitting there in my emotional emptiness, he would kill me and at this moment I didn’t care.

“Charlotte?” Alex’s voice echoed in the room before the lights turned back on, he looked shocked and worried.
“What do you want? Come to tell me I should go die, swap my life with Jett” I reply harshly
“No, I... I... I just heard everything Corbin said to you. Is it true?” Alex said as he began to kneel next to me, taking my chin in his hand, making me look in his eyes.
“Yes it’s true, I didn’t do it Alex, I swear, I was telling the truth the whole time, he killed Jett, he wants me dead, he’s going to get us all killed” I said timidly.
“I believe you” He said as he took me into a big brotherly hug before I start to softly whimper.
He sighed.
“We have to go to Henry’s office, he has a mission for all of us, it’s the biggest one ever apparently, I’ll stay right by you Charlotte, we’ll figure something out, I promise, we will have to act as though I don’t know anything though, so he doesn’t hurt anyone else, I can be nice to you though” He said giving me a final squeeze before pulling me gently up and out of the room towards the office.

“Alex what are you doing with HER” Tony called cruelly
“I think it’s time we stopped treating her like she’s nothing, mistakes happen and I believe that she didn’t mean for Jett to get hurt and die Tony, we are a team, a family, no matter what we are supposed to stick together, that’s what families do” Alex replied.
“Fine, be nice to her but I’m not going to” Tony said turning away to his seat in the office.
“Now now Tony, Alex is right, we are a family, together forever” Corbin smirked gripping my shoulder extra hard, I tried not to cry out.
Corbin let go of my shoulder as we were all beckoned to sit down by Henry.

“I know times have been recently due to the loss of Jett but we must carry on, I have received information on a large detail of creatures, which apparently holds at this moment, their leaders, Zane, Fakir and Serena. We need a group of you to first scope out the area; you will be joined by the Cazadors, Sandra and Felix. Your groups shall be:
Group One: Taylor, Alex, Charlotte, Katrina and Sandra
Group Two: Tony, Dakota, Corbin, Felix
Group Three: Aala, Blake and Alejandro
Group one shall be the group to scout the area, Group two and three shall be at a distance awaiting the return of group one, you will all then decide the best way in which you shall enter the area. Your folders here give all the information we have on the mission, go join your elders and prepare. Good luck, do us proud my children” Henry said as he briefed us.

We left finding my parents, Sandra and Felix waiting for us outside.
“Let’s go guys” Felix said quickly walking us towards the weaponry house. From then on it went on how any normal mission had gone, we got the weapons, vehicles and grouped up, heading towards our destination. Our fates undecided, one thing I had decided, Corbin was going to try to kill me and I could feel it coming soon, could I die in this mission? Only time could tell.

*Three Hours later*

We had all reached what was to be group 2 and 3’s hideout until we (Taylor, Alex, Mum, Sandra and me) came back from our scout. We set off, keeping to the now dark and looming trees that shadow the cold ground. Barely saying a word in case we were heard by someone/something, using sign language and signals we communicated with each other.
Suddenly, my mother signalled us to halt; she had seen something move quickly ahead of us. Using our hands we talked.
“What was it?” Taylor signed
“Something quick, agile, it looked human all except the bright crimson eyes” Alex said as he had also noticed the movement
“Vampire?” I questioned
“Yes, a weak and young one, can’t be more than 50 years old” my mother said
“Ugh when you say 50 is young it’s just plain weird, what’s even worse is that Fakir and Serena are 600 odd years old” Taylor signs
“Too right” Alex and I replied, I saw my mother smirk as she signed to us
“What does that make me? I’m 40”
“But you don’t look it Katrina, now we have a scout to do” Sandra piped in. Sandra now also knew the truth as we told her just as we set off from the hideout, making sure Corbin would not be able to hear anything that we said. We crept through the thickly grown terrain now watching out with our senses heightened for any movement or sound as we were close to our target area.
Finally we spotted it, a large amount of old buildings were surrounded by vampires and werewolves. We broke into two smaller groups, Taylor, Alex, Sandra and my mother and I. Taylor and the others scouted off to the left while my mum and I veered off to the right.
After scouting the area for an hour we decided we had enough information to give to be able to infiltrate the main buildings and outside targets.
We were on our way quietly back we a large splintering snap sounded behind us. We whorled quickly around coming face-to-face with a large ferocious werewolf, our weapons in hand we faced it as it began to ready itself into a fighting stance.
“Charlotte, run” My mother told me as she faced the cold hearted beast alone, pushing me away behind her. I started to creep backwards as the wolf started an attack my mother, I then ran back through the dense terrain, weapons in hand heading back to the others.
“Please let my mother be okay” I whispered in the wind as I ran quickly, dodging trees, bushes and falling branches.
I had been running for ages now, my thoughts never came off my mother, then
Suddenly I crashed into someone; I quickly readied myself to attack in case it was a beastly creature.
“Charlotte?!” Alex exclaimed
“Bloody hell thank god it’s you, where’s Taylor and Sandra?” I asked
“I’m right here, Sandra got taken Charlotte, those beasts took her! Wait... Where’s Katrina?” Taylor said as she came galloping through the terrain.
“I’ll explain on the way back to the hideout, we need to move... NOW!” I said hearing a snap of a brittle branch not far off before briskly taking off towards the hideout.
We finally arrived to the hideout but to our great surprise it was empty, weapons lay on the floor, vehicles torn apart and everything else we had brought was scattered roughly across the ground.
“No! Tony! Blake! Aala! Felix! Dad!” I shouted looking for any sign of them.
“Charlotte it’s no use they’re gone, we’re on our own” Alex said grimly.
“Then we are going to save them” I said, gathering extra weapons that I could easily carry.
“Have you seen what’s out there Charlotte!? There are three of us, how do you suspect we do that?” Taylor questioned
“I don’t know, but you don’t expect me to just sit here and wallow do you?! I am getting them back, whether you guys come with me or not” I told them as I carried on gathering the materials I would need.
“Charlotte just wait a minute...” Alex started to reason
“No! Every minute we waste now is a minute more that our family are in danger.” I replied sharply
“I know, for god sake Charlotte listen to me!” Alex shouted at me as he turned me sharply around to face him,
“Fine. I’m listening”
“We should go get back up first, I know they are out there with them but unless you want us dead like they could be then I suggest we get back up first. There is no way that we could protect ourselves from all of them; you saw how many there was, there had to be at least two hundred creatures out there.” Alex said calmly
I ignored him; I kept on sorting out the gear before looking at the vehicles to see if any could be salvaged. I found hidden by the bushes a motorbike, I climbed on to it and tried to rev it, it worked.
“You two aren’t going in there, you both are going back to head quarters on this bike to get to Henry, tell him everything and get back up. I am going in there on this bike and will try and get to the others. Don’t argue with me, they won’t kill me, Corbin will want me alive to kill me himself so until he finds me I’ll be fine” I told them, half hoping what I said would be true.
“No, I’m staying, Alex can get help but I’m going to stay, at least let me stay here at the hideout, I can be your back up, the ear pieces still work for us even though everyone else’s seem to have broken so you can call for me, and if you succeed you’re going to have to have somewhere to bring them and will need the rest of the weapons, I can try and get these vehicles working and everything sorted quickly. You need someone still here close by Charlotte” Taylor said as I sighed knowing they were right.
“Fine, Alex goes to get back up, Taylor you stay and be careful, keep it as quiet as possible, there’s less risk of you getting caught as they have already been here but still keep an ear out and watch your back. I’ll call you on the ear pieces as soon as I can. Well I guess this is it guys, do or die, good luck and see you on the other side” I said giving them what I thought would be my last hugs before heading off, Alex quickly mounted the motorbike and sped off while Taylor began to see what she could salvage from the wrecked vehicles.

I got into a steady pace as I travelled back through the terrain, the wind was blowing hard; this would be a big problem as the creatures would smell me from miles away.
I found myself near the main buildings quickly, scanning over the buildings to figure my route into them, I had no idea where they would hold my family and group, but I had to find them.
Without warning two young wolves stalked past me, I was luckily hidden well otherwise they would see me, but there was still the chance they would smell me.

“Can’t wait to sink my teeth into those juicy hunters, they will be a treat” The smallest said
“You really think you’re going to even get a bite out of them, are you stupid boy! Why do you think they’ve been put in the main site with the bosses” the bulkier one said as he pointed to the biggest building on site.
This gave me some of the information I needed to know, I just had to get in the building, it was surrounded by at least 30 creatures. I slowly moved out of my hiding place as I crept around the outside of the area to get to the other side of it where the main building was. What I noticed was that there was only one small weakness in it, the roof.
A small part of the building was left unguarded at the back; this was my way to the roof, using a large hook and rope I had gathered from the hideout I swift-fully shot it upwards as it dug itself into the roof, luckily without a sound. I began to pull myself up the rope, feet on the wall as I scaled the wall. When reaching the top I stayed low, the main building was once and old factory, and lucky for me it was one with windows situated on the roof, I found the nearest one, slightly peering in, there was nothing in the room below me, that I could see. I opened the window.
I sent a message through the ear pieces before leaping through the now opened window.
“Guys I don’t know whether you can hear me but I’m in the site, I’m on the main building on the roof, now about to go in. Good luck guys and I hope this goes how I planned it” I said knowing full well I had no plan. I leaped through the window as silently as possible before landing with a small thud.
I cringed, listening for any sound, then I heard the sound of chains behind me, I slowly began to turn to see who lurked in the shadows, chained up.
I gasped when I saw who it was.

“Charlotte?” the voice whispered.