Heart and Soul

I abandoned all thoughts of my ashen training partner, Cassius. Tyson stood in the center of the hall with shocked eyes. My stomach churned with nerves, but I wasn’t going to back down. Even the threat of the Pit, a terrifying room where Leith dealt out his punishments for misbehavings, couldn't stop me from storming his office. He promised me he’d always talk to me when it came to my heart. Promises like that aren’t supposed to be easily broken. But I could feel it. Feel his lanky fingers gently squeezing the barely beating organ that belonged inside me, inside my chest. The most precious of his possessions.

Sharp pains rocketed through my chest. I stopped. My knees collapsed underneath me. Deep breaths. Blood rushed through my weak veins. Feet appeared before my eyes. Growls mumbled weakly through clinched lips.

“We need to talk, Nicholai.” The sound of a box lid clamping together echoed in my ears before the click of a lock finalized my torture.

“About what,” I hissed while forcing my body back into a standing position. Three deep breaths and my blood still boiled within its fleshy cage.

He growled. The sound that echoed through the halls seemed more ferocious than a lion’s roar. “Your heart glowed, Nicholai, I saw it. Who is tracking you?”

“I don’t know.” I lied. His nostrils flared. Fire raged within his hopelessly black eyes. He held a single unlit match over the box. His brow furrowed while his eyes narrowed into barely open slits. I braced myself against the wall before giving him a glare of my own. “I don’t know!”

“You stink of fear, Soul Stealer!” He growled; his razor teeth glinted in the dim light. “I smelled it before I pulled out the match.” He struck the match against the side of the box. “Tell me! Now!”

I shook my head. He lowered the match. Deep breaths. “Tell me, Nicholai!”

“Your witch!” I screamed. Silence filled the air. The only sound heard through this darkened facility was the crackling of the flame hovering above my heart.

“What?” His face contorted from a horrific glare to something I’d never seen before. Those pits he called eyes took on a red hue, his teeth somehow elongated, and everything about his new appearance warranted new safety procedures but there were no procedures in my mind to follow. This was change, and I wanted to run from it.

“Her soul is different! You said so yourself.” I fumbled for words. Finding myself praying to a being I didn’t, and hadn’t, believed in for nearly a century; a date I could no longer remember since it belonged to my humanity. I lost faith before vampirism took me, but now I clung to it. Hoping that whatever happened here would not be as bad as it could be.

“She’s strong. The daughter of a woman, a Wiccan, that nearly freed us all once.” Nostalgia forced its way onto his features. The match burned out. I breathed a quiet sigh. “How is she tracking you? She needs…”

“Something happened! I don’t know how to explain.”

“Find the words!” He revealed another match from his pocket.

“I lost control! My legs stopped working, and when I climbed out of the window something took my arm. My blood marked a piece of glass in her home.”

“You…” he trailed off. More anger, which I didn’t think possible, seeped into his body. His shoulders tensed, brow creased further. Demonic seemed like a nice word compared to the way he stared at me.

“Boss?”

“This is mine!” He motioned toward the box. My heart. “She can’t have it.”

“No!”

“Just like you can’t have her!” His voice echoed; a thousand daggers cutting through my skin.

“I don’t want her!” I hissed. I reached toward the box, but something shot through my chest. It wasn’t the pain he’d inflicted on my organ; it was deeper, with no allure of pain.

“You’ll learn, Nick.” He turned on his heels, taking slow deliberate steps away from me. “Two days.”

The sound of water crashed in my ears. Blackness, like the center of his eyes, filled my sight. Thorns grabbed my wrists forcing them together behind me. I knew what this was. I’d done this to many times before. The pace drug my feet along the floor until we stopped the door creaked open.

“Welcome,” an unfamiliar gruff voice whispered in my ear, “to the Pitt.”