Corruption

I was so anxious my body was shivering, almost convulsing. Paying the cab driver fifty bucks without even asking how much it was, I flung open the door and ran up the driveway of Candace’s house. A young women in a maids uniform was already outside the door, looking at me. I was about to ask her where Candace was when she spoke first. “She’s at Aiden’s. You have to hurry. She is trouble, and you need to help her.”

Seeing the confusion on my face, she pointed to the neighboring house, all light by lights inside the house. “Hurry, in there!” she whispered before shutting the door. Without thinking, I ran through the grass, then with adrenaline pumping through my veins, jumped over the short brick wall separating the two houses. Before my feet landed on the ground, hand grabbed my arms, and lifted off the ground.

I tried to scream, but it was as if there was too much adrenaline in me and it was starting to drown me. Looking up at the hands that held me, I saw four large black leather wings, flapping in the full moon light. My feet landed back on the ground, but only for a second as I was swept off my feet again, brought through a lot of bright lights and blurs, and into a dark room. The hands released me, dropping me to the floor.

My head was spinning as if I had been twirling in circles with my arms wide open. Someone gasped, and I looked up to see who it was. Candace was standing to my right, behind held back by two people who were wearing black robes that covered their faces.

There were about a dozen people surrounding me. The ones that had their faces uncovered, had red eyes. It spooked me to the core, but I still had my adrenaline pumping through my veins, so I was quite sure how I should feel about the situation.

“Mike?” Candace squeaked, her whole body shaking with fear.

Standing up, I looked around again. Where was i? And who the hell were all these people?

“This is brilliant!” Someone yelled from behind me. Swiveling on the spot, I looked at no more than a young girl with black hair, staring straight at me with her hands clasped in front of her. “Just brilliant! The love triangle, here right now!”

I went to look at Candace, but she was no longer staring at me, she was staring at another boy who was kneeling on the ground, also held back by a few people. He was looking back at Candace with the same expression she had on. A love triangle? When had that started? How confusing was this right now? The only thing I knew was that we were all in trouble.

“Oh don’t tell me!” the women yelled, laughing. Her head got thrown back from the force of her own laugh. “Candace didn’t tell you.” She laughed again, looking from Candace to me, then to Aiden. “You have to learn to communicate!”

Appearing at the other boy’s side, the one I assumed to be Aiden, and took his chin in her vice grip, making him look at me. “You see him?” she asked, not waiting for answer. She yanked his head to look at Candace now. “He loves her.”

The women appeared by my side, pointing at Aiden with her small bony finger. “He,”--her finger switched to Candace—“loves her.” She swirled in a circle as if to dance with joy. “And Candace loves you both!”

I glared at Aiden, wondering how Candace could love someone like him. He had obviously gotten her into this mess, had gotten her where she was right now. And maybe have gotten me here right now as well.

The young women roughly went over to Candace and took her hand, pulling something off her finger. She came inches from face, showing me what she had taken off of Candace’s finger. The ring I had given her shimmer in the little light from the open window. “Here is your ring. You see? She really does love you.” Throwing the ring across the room, Marissa smiled.

I watched the ring soar across the room, Aiden reaching his hand out to catch it, but another women that was standing close by caught it first. She tucked it into her pocket, then looked up to watch what the small women would do next.

Marissa grabbed a hold of Candace’s arm and dragged her to Aiden. “You can also see…” Marissa began, holding onto Candace’s arm tightly. I cold see that Candace was in pain from her eyes.

“Don’t hurt her!” I yelled, staring toward Candace, but was stopped by two people who were holding me back. I tried to struggle against them, do anything to make them got off, but it didn’t seem to make any difference.

“These two love each other too.” The women said, ignoring me completely. “To bad it’s over now.” A growl started to come from Aiden’s throat and reverberate throughout the room. Had he really just growled at that woman?

In a second, everything around me was moving; even I was picked up off the ground and was moved to the nearest wall. Someone slammed my head against the wall, making me momentarily blind. When I could see again, I somehow got one of my arms free. Or maybe it had already been free, I’m not sure, but I grabbed my knife from my pants pocket, and tried to get anyone with it.

A freezing cold hand reached out for the knife and took it easily, smashing my head back into the wall.

Then everything went black.

“No!” I heard myself yell, shooting up in bed. My whole body was covered in sweat, drenching the blankets that were wrapped around my body in a weird configuration. My chest heaved as I tried to untangle myself from the blankets. Once free, I stood up from bed, and stopped. I really didn’t know what to do. I had this dream often, and every time I went back to bed, the dream would continue from where it had left off, leaving me to remember all that I knew.

The dreams were so vivid, so extreme that it was hard to fall asleep afterward. Going over to the balcony doors, I swung them open. The cool air touched my drenched skin, making me shiver. But it was a nice feeling after the shock ran off. The metal wire chair in the corner was almost calling to my weak and tired body. I dragged myself over to it, and sat down, closing my eyes.

I had this dream all the time, and it was always a scary thing to relive over and over again. Who would even want to think about it? I slapped myself on the forehead. God how stupid was I? Of course Candace didn’t want to talk about what she went through. She was pretty much conscious the whole time. Her memories must have been more horrific than my few, and I made her relive them.

I got up from the chair and left my room towards Candace’s. Even if she was sleeping, I wanted to see her. Slowly, I slipped through her bedroom door and into her room. “Candace?” I whispered, tip-toeing to her bed. She didn’t answer, only moved a little where she slept.

Sneaking closer to her bed, I kneeled down close to her, watching her as she rolled back and fourth, her face screwed up as if in pain. She was obviously having a nightmare—and it was not a very nice one. Her hand reached out toward me, making me back a little away from her. Her hand grabbed a hold of the sheets underneath her, gripping them tightly. A slight scream erupted from her mouth, but that was all the sound she made, then she was quiet, unmoving.

I leaned in closer to her to see if she was awake. She wasn’t, but I saw that she was crying, tears running down her face. Tentatively wiping them away with my finger, I felt climbing into bed and comforting her. Her dreams haunted her as much as mine did to me. It was some what comforting, but also a very big eye opener to me. Whatever she had gone through, it never left her thoughts. Even if she was sleeping she was always thinking about “how she went wrong,” to put it in her own words.

All I could do for her now was to pull the covers up closer to her chin, and leave the room. It wouldn’t help her if I was there just watching her have nightmares and wake up in a frenzy. If she really wanted me, she knew where I was.

I sat back down in the wire chair, closing my eyes again. Candace was now on my mind, and I wondered if she had nightmares about the same exact thing I did. My thoughts started to slowly dwindled. I was just so tired…

My head hurt so much. I could feel blood starting to drip down the side of my face. When I opened my eyes, all I saw was a roof made of wood. Flexing my arms muscles to see if I was hurt, I placed my hand on the side of my head. Wincing from the pain of the open wound, I tried to sit up. Bad idea. My mind swirled as the blood that had been in my head rushed through my body, glad that I was up right again.

Once my vision cleared, I saw where I was. The building I was in was small, all made of wood. There were a few hooks on the opposite wall, probably to hold tools or some other farming things. To my left was a large pile of hay, and to my left…Candace.

I scrambled to my feet and stumbled over to her. She was face down on the dirty ground. I flipped her over, placing her head on my lap. She too had a small wound on her head, but the bleeding looked like it had stopped. “Candace?” I asked, looking around some more. There was a wooden door, just out of reach, a small hole in the center of the door. Someone was standing right outside of it, watching over us both.

“Candace?” I asked again, moving her head from side to side. I placed my ear to her chest to hear her breathing. It was so shallow…and it was hard to hear her heart beat, but it was there. She was still alive.

“Candace?” I said a little louder, trying to wake her.

The wooden door opened, and a black cloaked figure came into the room, looking down on us both. I couldn’t find my voice, so I just stared, wondering what the figure could possibly want. With quick agility, the figure knelt down beside Candace, shot her through the arm with a needle, and left the room, closing the door behind them. Before they left, the hood fell off of the person’s face. It was a women, the one that had caught Candace’s ring before.

“Hey!” I yelled at her, trying to get her back here. What had she given Candace? Oh God—maybe it was the same drug, a drug to kill her. Maybe they had tried to do it the first time, but they hadn’t given her enough.

Aiden. I looked around the small hut for him, but he was no where in sight. Maybe he would have been able to help. He just wasn’t here. This Aiden guy…he had had red eyes, just like all of the others had. There was something going on here…

“Candace? Candace!” I was starting to yell, becoming hysterical. She couldn’t be dead. I needed her right now.

“Aiden?” Candace croaked, her head started to move on its own. A small pang of jealousy rang through me, but I ignored that, moving joy into its place.

“Candace? Can you hear me?” I asked, moving my face closer to hers.

“Yes.” She said, barely moving her lips. I sighed, relieved that she was okay. Her eye lids flickered for a few moments, trying to open. They she was looking up at me, a hint of a smile on her face. “Mike?”

I stroked her hair, getting it all away from her face. “I was so worried you weren’t going to wake up.”

She tried to move her head to look around, but I tightened my grip on her head, holding it into place. “You hurt your head.”

“That would explain the pain.” She winced as if to show her point.

“Sorry,” I said, trying to release some of my tension I had. “I don’t carry Advil around with me.” She laughed with me for a moment, then it all was quiet. Without any warning, Candace sat up, almost smacking her head on mine. She swayed where she sat, but I caught her before she fell over. “I told you that you hit your head.” I scolded.

Ignoring me, she stood up. I stood with her, making sure to keep one hand on her in case she fell. “Where are we?” she asked, looking through a very small window on the opposite wall.

I shook my head. Looking at the dark sky through the window. “I have no idea.” We were both quiet then, probably trying t figure things out. I was so confused about everything. Like, how could I have possibly got here; and where was here exactly? Candace took a few steps away from me that she needed to, to look out the window.

“I need to know…” I said, trying to ask the questions that would answer the confusing in my head, but coming up short on how to word them. I paused for a moment, trying to think of where to start. Candace waited patiently for me to continue, still staring out the small window. “What happened at that house?” I asked, “Who are these people and why do they want you?”

She did not hesitate to answer me. “They are just some evil vampires that want the Westcotts to join their cult. They said they won’t so they have been hunting them for eighty years. And now Marissa is back to fight them for what she wants. Since I know Aiden, they were using me as bait to get to them.” She smiled weakly at the sound of what she had just said. “So I’ve heard…”

I wanted to laugh at that, but some how I knew it wasn’t even partially a joke. It did seem like a fairy tale she had just told in about ten seconds, but somehow, I could see it being possible. “I guess you’ve been busy.” I mumbled, not sure what else to say.

She nodded, not thinking it was funny. “How did we get here?”

I went and looked out the window with her, trying to see our surroundings. Our surroundings were—nothing. That was it. Nothing. Trees maybe two hundred feet away, but other than that, nothing. I hadn’t ever seen this before. “My guess is as good as yours.”

“Well we haven’t been here long.” She said confidently, turning on her heel, walking to the other side of the building, and coming back

Watching her pace, I thought of something else, something had been bugging me ever since I had woken up. “Who was…ah…that guy?”

Candace stopped her pacing. “Aiden?”

I shrugged like I didn’t care. “Yeah.”

She shrugged too, continuing her pacing. “Just a friend.”

“He seems more than that Candace.”

A smile started to spread across her lips, but she stopped it. “Well, that doesn’t really matter right now. We just need to get out of here.” It was as if she had seen the door for the first time; maybe it was the first time she had seen it. She ran over to it, yanking on the small handle that was connected.

The door didn’t even move, but someone outside the door did. Candace jumped back just in time before the door swung inward, and two black figures rushed inside, the door slamming behind them. Candace was thrown across the room, her back pressed up against the opposite wall. Marissa held her an inch above the ground by her neck. Marissa was so small it was hard to imagine that she could easily pick Candace up that way.

I tried to run and get her, but a cold hand wrapped around my arm, jerking me back. It was the women that had come in and gave Candace something to wake her up. She wasn’t looking at me, only at Marissa and Candace.

Candace was clawing at Marissa’s hand around her throat, constricting her airway. “You are going to tell me everything I need to know.” Marissa screamed, throwing Candace on to the ground. Her head whipped to look in my direction, then she smiled. “How are you Mike?” she said with a devilish grin.

I shot upward, something cold touching my arm. Aiden stood next to me, his face showing concern. “You okay?” he asked, putting his hands back into his pockets.

I shook my head to try and get rid of the images still burned into my eyes. “Yeah, just a nightmare.”

Aiden nodded. “That makes three of us.”

“You have nightmares?”

Aiden laughed at the thought of sleeping. “Well, no. I kind of have…visions if you want to put it that way. Or…daydreams. I guess that is a better word for it. The daydreams are just never what I want them to be.”

“Candace was having a bad dream too…” I said, glancing back into my bedroom.

He nodded. “Every night; she just never tells anyone that she has them. I’m not sure if she even remembers them when she wakes up.”

“That’s a good thing.”

He nodded again.

I stood up from the chair, stretching out my legs. The sky was starting to get brighter, the sun slowly rising to greet us all with its warmth. “Not to sound rude,” I said cautiously, “but what are you doing here?”

“Just thought I would come and relieve you of your bad dream, that’s all.” He seemed to be holding something back.

“You sure?” I asked.

Aiden leaned on the balcony with one hand, jumping over the edge and landing on the grass with a soft thump. “I’m sure.” He called up to me, disappearing from sight.