Nothing Is as It Seems

The next morning when I woke up, I decided I wanted to explore the rest of the house. I climbed out of bed and locked myself in the bathroom so I could shower and get dressed. After I was finished, I peeked through my doorway and didn’t see anyone so I set off down the hallway.

I checked all the doors along the hallway, but all of them were locked. So I decided to go explore downstairs. I quietly made my way down the stairs, not wanting to make noise and have someone come check to see what it was. The living looked the same as it had the first day I’d gotten here so I wandered around the rest of the house.

The next room was the kitchen and dining area. I froze when I saw Zacky sitting at the table and tried to back out of the room without him noticing. Of course, with whatever weird senses he had, he noticed.

“Come sit with me,” he said. I took a deep breath then sank down into the chair next to his.

“I was just looking around,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t think I was trying to plan another escape.

“You don’t have to explain.” He reached over to a basket in the center of the table and pulled out a bright red apple, offering it to me.

I took it and turned it over and over in my hands. I knew I had been eating the food he sent to me, but something about the symbolism of the apple freaked me out.

“You can eat it, it’s not poison I promise.” His smiled gave me no comfort, but I bit into it anyway. I didn’t want to give him any reason to believe I didn’t trust him.

“So what are you? I mean, what makes you have the power you do?” It was something I had wondered since I was first brought here. He didn’t answer which honestly didn’t surprise me. “You’re just gonna kill me anyway so I won’t have a chance to let your secret out.”

“To put it simply, we’re the result of vampires and wizards mating. We have the strength of vampires, but the magic of wizards. We eat human food, although some of us do crave blood it’s not necessary. We are immortal too like vampires.”

“Wow so you must be very powerful,” I said and leaned closer to him. I doubted my seduction skills were very strong, but I had to try. I needed to make him care for me so he wouldn’t kill me.

“You have no idea.” He tensed when I put my hand on his arm.

“That must be amazing. Can you turn humans into one of you?”

“Of course, but it’s a lot of responsibility. Once you change someone, you have to teach them everything so they don’t out and expose us.”

“So you could make me like you?” I asked and I didn’t miss his sharp intake of breath.

Zacky’s eyes locked onto mine. “You don’t know what you’re saying. You wouldn’t want that.”

“To be that powerful, to live forever. Of course I’d want that,” I said. I didn’t want it, but maybe convincing him to change me would give me longer to come up with an escape plan.

“Immortality can be a burden.” I was close enough to him now that I could count his eyelashes. I was too close for comfort and I had to fight to keep myself from cringing.

He took a breath, inhaling deeply. “What are you doing to me?” he muttered and then grabbed that back of my neck to pull my face to his.

He kissed me roughly. I gasped in fear, but he mistook it as pleasure and deepened the kiss. It took a few seconds for me to get over it and kiss him back. It was the only way to make this work.

When he pulled away a few moments later, he just stared at me. “Okay. If you really want me to, I will change you. If you help me pick out someone new for the sacrifice.”

How could I do that? Could I really be that selfish? If I did this I would basically be sentencing another girl to die. If I didn’t do it, I was going to lose my life in a few days. It was an impossible decision to make. I could feel Zacky’s eyes on me and that just made everything worse.

“So what will it be?”