Club Angel's Kiss

“I love you, Amber. You are the only girl who will ever steal my heart and make me feel the way you do. Honestly, I don’t want to do this, but I know this is what you want and what will make you happy. In the end, that is all that matters.”

Something shifted on the bed, causing me to flop on my side like I had been dropped down roughly. But, of course, this was only a dream. A strange one, but a dream nonetheless. Why else would I be hearing Zacky say such weird things?

I wouldn’t.

A cold breeze passed quickly over me. I curled into a tight ball. The wind must have somehow started blowing in from the windows lining the wall.

After all, this was the first night sleeping in our new room. There could be weird drafts and such that we had yet to know of. I would have to get used to it, or scrounge around the house for thicker blankets.

The ones I had were not doing the job they were intended to do.

A shiver trembled down my body. I whimpered. Without opening my eyes, my hands probed around on the mattress, seeking out the nearest blanket to cuddle myself into.

The tips of my fingers grazed against my thigh. To my surprise, they touched fabric instead of bare skin, like I had anticipated.

After Zacky and my conversation was over, I went directly to sleep. I had no chance to put pajamas on, and Zacky would have no reason to get me dressed unless something was happening and he didn’t want to wake me up.

I sat upright on the bed.

A single window was to my left, allowing streams of sun to shine through, illuminating the white painted walls and red bedding. Precisely in front of the bed sat a familiar pink vanity with a wide mirror sitting atop.

My frazzled reflection stared back at me. My hair was an absolute mess and I wore a pair of strange shorts and a black t-shirt I had never seen before.

I looked to my left, where a nightstand sat beside the bed. On the dark wood was an old picture of Adam and myself when we were little.

I had seen the picture before. It used to sit beside my bed back at home.

This was my old bedroom. Everything sat in the same place as I left it the night I came back with Johnny to retrieve my clothes.

Wow. What a realistic dream!

Even the shirt that I had thrown onto my dresser when I came with Johnny to get my clothes still resided in the same place. My drawers were still thrown open and my closet doors were lopsided from the force Johnny had pushed them open.

I swung my legs over the side of the mattress and pushed myself up to a standing position. The window beside the bed sat thrown open. Frigid air floated inside, striking my skin.

I hopped across the soft carpet in two leaps toward the window. I pressed both palms against the window’s levers and pushed down until it was completely closed and the cold air was sealed outside where it belonged.

With a sigh, I leaned away from the window and looked around my childhood bedroom.

Why would my dream bring me here? Back to where it all began, before I was destined for death by bloodsucking murderers.

It was very weird. I hadn’t dreamed about my mother or my family in almost a month. I barely even dreamed anymore. Every time I closed my eyes at night, I got terrible visions of death and murder and my loved ones missing limbs or torn into pieces.

Nightmares. That was all I had anymore.

But this wasn’t one of those frightening reveries. This was my family’s home. I “woke up” in my bedroom like I had done for twenty two years straight.

Everything seemed to be shaping up pretty odd.

Vicious pains struck in my stomach.

What if…?

Never mind, never mind. Paranoia would not get the best of me.

I shuffled away from the window, passed my old bed and vanity and to my door, where I grabbed the knob and pushed it open. The hallway opened up to my sight. Nothing had changed here either; every picture that had covered the walls before I left remained in the same place.

The young, happy eyes and faces of Adam and myself stared at me as I moved cautiously down the empty strip of house. I found the stairs and quickly trotted down them to the foyer…

Where the door was thrown open, and a male police officer stood with a walkie-talkie balanced in his hand.

I stopped at the bottom step, my right hand gripping the railing.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

The cop looked up at me. Shock waved over his face. Immediately, he babbled something into the two way.

I shook my head and rounded the banister. The opening to the kitchen held two more cops and my mother. They were talking in low tones. Mom looked like she had been crying extensively, or maybe she had been suffering from insomnia.

There were dark circles around her eyes, but I couldn’t pinpoint why exactly.

I walked a little closer.

“What is happening here?” I repeated louder. “Mom?”

Their heads turned in my direction. The only female officer of the group reached out and grabbed my shoulder. She pulled me closer.

“Amber!” Mom cried. “Thank God, you’re awake! Oh, sweetie. Come here!”

She ripped me out of the cop’s grip, crushing me against her chest with the power of a python. I gasped at the temperature of her hands on my bare arms.

I gently pushed her away. “Damn, Mom. Get a blanket or something!” I rubbed my palms across my forearms and shook my head.

“Anyway, what’s happening? Why are there cops crawling our house? I’m slightly worried.”

“It’s because you are finally home!” Mom said happily, her eyes glittering. “After two months, someone has finally found you! Everyone said you were gone and we should give up hope, but I knew you weren’t gone for good!”

Even in my dreams, my mother was hysterical.

Although it surprised me she wasn’t crying yet. It would be my first guess for her to scream and sob and have rivers of tears streaming down her cheeks…

“I knew my little girl wouldn’t be taken down that easily,” she finished.

The female cop intervened and pulled me into the foyer. She made me sit down on the staircase, before grabbing a notepad and crouching down in front of me.

She sighed loudly.

I bit my cheek.

To say the least, I was starting to get worried. All of this seemed way too teal to be just another normal dream. This felt much different than that. Everything I touched, I felt, and my semi-nauseous stomach was definitely not something my dreamlike state could make up on its own.

“Amber Harless,” the cop spoke up. “My name is Greta VanDeen, and I am here to ask you a few questions about the passed two months. Is that alright?”

“What?” I furrowed my eyebrows. “What about the passed two months? How do you know anything about that?”

Greta glanced at the male cop standing in the door frame. He nodded and crouched down beside her, like they were silently discussing something.

Anger and impatience bubbled up inside my abdomen. I did not want to wait while two clueless police officers took their jolly good time with telling me what the hell was going on and why they were questioning about my wonderful life.

None of their business.

“We know about the passed two months because a young man by the name of Z. Baker brought you home after finding you abandoned by the Club Angel’s Kiss lot.” Greta shook her light colored ponytail about. “He said you told him horrifying tales of being kidnapped by a Satanic worshipping clan of teenagers. Is this true?”

That was possibly the stupidest story I had ever heard. Satanic worshippers? Z. Baker?

So my intuition was right. This was not a dream. Zacky had dropped me at my parents’ house for my own good, to keep me out of harm’s way. He thought this would be best for me. And this way I could move on to love a human who could give me children.

Now I could see my family, whom I missed! But none of that was worth this. I could never see my coven again! Never see Zacky. I would never be able to fall in love with anyone else except him. It was impossible.

“Miss Harless, is that true? What Mr. Baker said?” Greta questioned.

“Uh, yes, yes.” I stood up. “Everything Mr. Baker said is true. I was kidnapped by weird teenagers while on a date and they took me back to their hideout south of the city. They did not hurt me, but I did hear that they were going to burn down the club. Then the next day, they dropped me off at the burnt lot. Mr. Baker found me and I told him everything. Can I go now? I really need to lie down.”

“Of course. Go right on ahead.”

I tried my best to walk calmly up the staircase, but as soon as tears started falling, my speed increased to a flat out run up the top hallway. I slumped against my bedroom door and slid down to the floor.

I pulled my knees to my chest, dropping my head onto my arms.

“How could you do this?” I wailed. “Yes, for my own good, but how am I supposed to stay out of harm when you have already sent me to my deathbed by leaving me?”

I let out an angered cry.

It was so infuriating!

Damn him! How dare he do this to me.

“Amber?” A very tiny, innocent little voice reached my ears. The tiny sound was so adorable.

I lifted my head. “Oh, Daniel! Hello! How have you been?” I held out my hands to the little foster child.

He was only five and had been living with us since he was in infant. Before I left, he had been one of my best friends.

Daniel Otterick took my hands. I stretched my legs out and he sat down in my lap, facing me. He wiped his tiny hand across my cheek.

“Why are you crying?” His mouth turned down into a frown.

“Because I’m sad,” I answered, ruffling his shaggy black hair. “I’ve had a bad day.”

“Why?”

I could not tell a five-year-old that I had been living with vampires for two months. That was not exactly the easiest thing to explain to someone who had not been a witness. But, then again, children’s innocent minds were open to anything. They had yet to experience the real things in life.

Slowly, I stood up and hoisted Daniel onto my hip. I tiptoed down the hall to my room, opened the door, and slid inside without so much as making a single noise.

Since I had been living with about twenty vampires whom had amazing hearing. I learned very quickly to walk and make the least noise possible so they wouldn’t know I left my room.

Closing the door, I set Daniel on the ground.

He looked up at me questioningly.

I gave him a gentle push over to the bed; he pulled himself up onto it. I sat beside him.

“Daniel, can you a keep secret?” I whispered.

He nodded.

“Good. Then I am going to tell you a secret, my love.” I nearly chuckled. ‘My love.’ Zacky’s flourished language was obviously getting to me. “But you must not tell anyone, not even Mama Harless. Okay? Or I’ll get in a lot of trouble.”

“Okay! I won’t tell anyone”

I shifted my position slightly so I could look straight in his light colored eyes.

“Did Mama Harless tell you I was gone?” I asked.

Another nod.

“Well, I’m going to tell you the true story of why I was missing. Alright?”

“I know the true story, though,” Daniel murmured. “Mama Harless told me you were kidnapped by mean people who hurt you.”

I shook my head. “No, that’s not the true story, sweetie. That is what I had to tell everyone to say out of trouble, so Mama Harless wouldn’t be mad at me.”

Daniel looked rather confused, but I continued on.

“The real story is that I got involved with a group of vampires--”

“Like Dracula?!” His voice now reeked with excitement.

“Yes, like Dracula, except they were a little different. They don’t have fangs, they are much, much nicer, and they don’t drink human blood. They actually drink animal blood, but not from actual animals. Somehow they have pouches of blood in a room.

“Anyway, they took me into their home and said that I had been chosen as their leader, like a Queen.”

“Was their a King?”

“Mhm. His name was Matt…”

In the silence of my old bedroom, I told Daniel my wonderful story of living with vampires. I told him everything from falling for Zacky, to the bad vampires, the various fights, all the fun, the deaths of Inez and Matt, and our new home. I finished the story by telling him Zacky left me back home because he wanted to keep me safe.

And that was why I had been crying.

Daniel cuddled closer to me as new tears fell from my cheeks. He patted my arm gently, trying to console me.

We say in silence for a few moments. Finally, Daniel said something.

“Are you going back?”

I sighed.

“I am going to try my best to get back there. I don’t want to be here. I want to be back with all the people I left, where I actually feel safe and wanted. Not like I’m a complete burden that needs to move out immediately.”

I raked my hand through my hair.

“It’s where I belong.”

“But I don’t want you to leave again, Amber. I missed you.” Daniel’s voice shook violently. “Don’t leave.”

I embraced the little boy in a hug.

It hurt me. He didn’t want me to leave. But there was no way in hell I was staying here when everything I had remained with the coven, including my heart…and my belongings.

A pang struck in the back of my mind. This was what I wanted! A child of my own without having Zacky get me pregnant. That child happened to be Daniel.

“Daniel, can I ask you a question?” I whispered, petting his hair.

“Mhm.”

“You don’t want me to leave, so what if you came with me? We can be a family. You can have all the playmates you want, and you will never be alone.” The idea was perfect! Not a hitch in the whole thing.

Cassariah and Drakkar would never get the change to hurt Daniel. The coven had a duty to protect me, and that duty would be extended to my son, where they still hated me or not.

And Zacky would be thrilled to have a family. He sounded less than happy when he told me about the whole situation. Having a loving son would be good for him, and having me back would be best for everyone, including myself.

“I would have a real family?” Daniel asked quietly. “A mother, and a father, and aunts and uncles? People to love me? Like Mama Harless always talks about?”

“Yes, all of that,” I grinned. “I can be your mother.”

Daniel threw his arms around my neck. “Good! I hoped you would get to be my mom.”

/ - / - / - /

“Then where’s Adam?”

“Hmm?” I slowly turned over to my left side and pushed myself up with my elbows. I glanced to where Daniel sat beside me, staring up at the ceiling aimlessly. “What do you mean, sweetie?”

Daniel looked at me very seriously. “If you were taken by vampires, then what happened to Adam? Where is he?”

I bolted completely upright. Panic shot through me wildly, blindly, like a train running over my chest. Slowly, I pressed the palms of my hands to my forehead, breathing in and out.

If possible, I had to get a grip on myself. I kept jumping to conclusions, expecting the absolute worse. My intuition seemed to be just as paranoid as I was.

“Adam is missing?” I asked as calmly as possible.

Daniel nodded. “That’s what Mama Harless said.”

Of course.

I pulled Daniel onto my hip again and scrambled off the bed. I threw open the door and took off down the stairs.

This. Could. Go. Terribly. Wrong.

Adam was missing, but why? And when did this happen? Why had word never got out of the rest of the city? Mainly in the stream where my vampires roamed?

If my vampires roamed anywhere outside of our house.

The front door had been shut. The police officers whom had been standing there were gone and the house was silent.

I rounded the banister again.

Mom stood at the end of the hallway, talking on the phone. I screeched to a halt in front of her and grabbed the phone. I stuck it to me ear.

“She’ll call you back. Thanks. Goodbye.” I pressed the end button and turned the full brunt of my worried look toward her.

Mom held out her hands. “What on earth are you doing, Amber?”

I laid the phone on the end table at my side.

“Where is Adam?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “Why is he missing? When did this happen? Tell me everything, please, Mom.”

My voice broke as I said her name.

“Who told you about that?” Mom hissed, clamping her hand down on my shoulder. Her voice sounded utterly shocked and upset. She switched her gaze between Daniel and me.

I yanked away from her grip, squeezing Daniel closer to my body.

“Daniel told me,” I muttered angrily. “Now tell me--”

“Daniel Otterick, how dare you disobey me?!”

I stumbled backwards at Mom’s ear piercing screech of words. Daniel attached himself to me, clinging to my neck in fear. I slid my arms tighter around him.

Mom shook her head slowly.

Cautiously, I watched her movements.

She lifted her leg as if she were going to step forward. But, where she should have only taken one, she took four in a split second and stopped in front of me, her face inches from mine.

No breath was coming from her, and she was all but motionless. Her face remained blank as stone except the evil grin on her lips.

Her head cocked to the side.

“You weren’t supposed to tell anyone, Daniel,” she whispered. “You swore that when Amber came home, you would play along and not say a word--”

Her arms shot out to grab Daniel, but I ducked and started hauling ass upstairs before she could touch him or myself. Daniel was crying now, wailing in my ear like there was no tomorrow.

Which there may or may not be.

At the top of the stairs, I cut the opposite way from my room and threw open the first door. I slammed and locked it behind me.

I looked around the foster children’s room. Two cribs sat against the furthest back wall, and a tiny bed sat beside us.

There were only three foster children? No. Impossible! When I left, there was a good ten inhabiting this wide open room.

I set Daniel on his bed.

“Listen, sweetheart,” I murmured. “Where are the other children? Do you know where they are?”

Daniel pointed his shaking, little hand toward the window. I rushed to the back wall, where the cribs were, and peered out into the backyard. Off to the side, near my father’s old shed, sat a destroyed heap of beds and cribs.

They were all crushed into separate, small pieces that were barely recognizable anymore.

I twisted around.

Only three foster children left in the house. Three tiny babies that I had to rescue and take away from here because my mother was no longer a loving human like she used to be. After I left, they must have made her into a terrible monster who fed on the innocent children living in her home.

That must have been why Adam was mysteriously gone. And why my father had yet to make an appearance anywhere since I was home, especially since his missing daughter was suddenly found…

He was gone, too.

I moved to the cribs beside me. The two babies were an infant girl named Lavender and a toddler boy named Joel. They had been here before I left with Matt, so I was fairly familiar with them.

I scooped Lavender up in her bundle of blankets and picked Joel’s sleeping form up onto my hip. He slumped his head on my shoulder.

Daniel was rocking back and forth on the edge of his bed. He looked stricken, disturbed, like he had seen things that no five year old should ever see.

My heart went out to him.

He had to sit back and watch while his beloved Mama Harless ate her way through his friends and those whom he loved. I could only imagine what it would be like listening to the tiny cries and screams, knowing I would be one of those meals at some point.

But that would never cross these children’s minds again. They were going somewhere safe, as soon as I could figure up a way for my vampires to come find me.

“Daniel,” I breathed, laying Joel beside him. I secured Lavender in my arms. “I need you to be brave, be a big boy for me. I’m going to get you out of here, where you’ll be safe. Okay?”

“Okay, Mama.”

My heart would have swelled at the sound of “Mama” had it not been for the nagging thought of my undead mother planning her next move downstairs.

I grabbed two baby bags from the corner between a dresser and a baby changing table. With one hand, I unzipped the bags, flung open the dresser drawers, and started throwing various clothing for Daniel, Joel, and Lavender into the bag, along with formula, bottles, and any other baby thing I could find.

I yanked the zippers closed once they were stuffed full and turned to the two boys on the bed.

Everything was at a standstill. I no longer knew the next move for us.

“You know, I was worried about you at first, Amber,” Mom’s voice floated in from the door. She had to be standing directly outside.

Daniel squeaked.

“My beautiful daughter was missing after a date with a mysterious, handsome boy. All the news crews and newspapers loved hearing about it, but, then, about a month ago, Adam came home with a beautiful blonde girl named Cassie.” She sighed loudly.

I snuck over to the second window in the room at the bottom of Daniel’s bed. I pushed it open noiselessly and motioned for Daniel to come closer.

“She seemed very nice. So nice that I agreed to let Adam go out with her. Of course, Adam didn’t come home the next day, but Cassie paid me a visit the next night. She told me the truth of where you were and that you were not coming home because you didn’t want to, you didn’t care about your family anymore.”

With the baby bags over my shoulder, I scooped Joel back up onto my hip. He stirred at the repeated movement, his eyes slowly opening.

I froze, as well as Daniel. Joel was known for crying when he woke up before it was time.

He stared at me, confused. I kissed his forehead and rocked him for a moment. Thankfully, he laid his head back down on my shoulder.

“Then she made me into this magnificent creature. I had amazing strength, amazing senses…and I craved human blood.” She paused. “First, I got your father as soon as I turned completely, and from there, I wanted more. I made a plan to take either one or two children a week--”

I tuned her out. A subject such as that was the last thing I wanted to hear.

“Daniel, stop listening,” I urged.

He clamped his hands over his ears, pain etched across his face. I shook my head back and forth twice in his direction. It was my silent way of telling him everything would be alright soon.

His pain stricken face eased up a little.

“What are we going to do?” he mouthed.

I nodded to the window. “We are going out the window to the yard.”

“How?!” Daniel cried.

I snapped my head to the door.

She had to hear that. But did she know what we were doing? And would she stop it? I hoped to hell the latter did not happen.

“Oh, Amber, Amber, Amber.” Mom laughed evilly.

A shiver ripped down my spine.

The way she spoke reminded me of Cassariah. Just the purse bloodlust in her voice, like she was salivating to rip me apart limb by limb and suck me dry of blood. It was fucking insane! Why would turning into a vampire make someone go against their own family? Against everything they loved?

Why become so soulless so quickly?

“You should think of betters ways to escape. I am your mother, after all. I know everything about you and everything you’re thinking. You’ll never get away, I can promise you that, darling daughter--”

“No, YOU’RE NOT!” I screamed, moving toward the door. “You are not my mother. I am not your daughter anymore, and you know nothing about me. You are a terrible woman because you let your son be taken away by a whore who has probably killed him by now.”

I fought back the urge to barge head on into a collision with a vampire. I had to remember Lavender and Joel were still in my arms, and I refused to hurt them like my disgusting creature of a mother already had.

“And you will never be able to stop me from saving these children!” Anger kept flowing in waves over my body. Everything was beginning to black out as if I were seeing through tunnel vision. “I have an entire coven protecting me, so if you dare try to hurt us--”

“What?!” The door crashed open against the wall. Mom still stood in the hallway, but now her face almost revealed what she was. I could just imagine her fangs as she opened her mouth.

She growled.

“What will your coven do? Hmm? Cassie said your coven kicked you out because they were worried about you and you wanted to come home.”

My jaw dropped in absolute shock.

She-she knew.

“Mhm, I know all about your other life,” Mom yelled. “The one you left here for. Cassie told me all about it! She has kept me updated in everything that involves you and your coven.”

“Is that right?” I gritted my teeth together. “Well, since you and Cassie are such good friends, I feel obligated to tell you some disturbing things about her. Ready? Cassie’s real name is Cassariah. She is in the enemy Chicago coven. The day I was admitted into the hospital, she and her mate almost killed me.”

“Liar!”

“They broke my arm and cracked my head open on the concrete. Matt saved me. Oh, remember Matt? Yeah, he was pretty attractive and sweet. Well, he’s dead. They killed him, lobbed his head right off his body just to get revenge on me. And right before that, they threw my into a vanity. And about a week before that, she tossed me off a fucking cliff!”

“STOP IT!” She was now screaming at the top of her lungs.

“I’m only alive because of my coven. They have done everything to protect me, unlike you.”

“I said, STOP!”

I knew it was coming the second the last word left her mouth. She was going to lunge at us, kill Lavender, Joel, Daniel, and myself right here, right now. I failed to protect the children! I never got to see Zacky again…

All was much too soon.

I felt Daniel grab my leg tightly. “Mama,” he whimpered.

“Help us,” I breathed. “Anyone. I know you are keeping tabs on me, please.”

I bent down, drawing Joel and Lavender to my chest. Daniel cuddled closer to my back.

“Back away from my queen.”

I gasped and bolted upright. Jimmy came into view from behind Mom, slamming his hand down on her shoulder. In one swoop, before Mom could even respond, he threw her through the wall at their side.

I almost sobbed.

Though I refused to admit it, I had never been more scared in my entire life. Not even facing down Cassariah and Drakker made me fear for my life as badly as that ordeal just had.

Jimmy let out a short laugh before turning to look at us. His eyes raked up and down my strange appearance, and I didn’t blame him. A twenty two year old girl wearing weird pajamas, holding two children, another holding on my leg, with overstuffed baby bags on my shoulders.

Not to mention I probably looked like I had been through the seven realms of hell and barely survived to tell the tale.

“Amber, are you okay?” he asked. “I would have come into the house sooner, but I was ordered not to let you see me by Zack. I am terribly sorry.”

“No, it’s…it’s okay. But can you grab these kids for a second? I need to…puke.”

Jimmy rushed to my side and snatched Lavender and Joel from my arms. Daniel stepped away from me, and I made my way to the window. I stuck my head out and heaved two stories in the arm.

I heard Jimmy snicker.

“You throw up very often.”

“Shut up.” I pushed away from the sill. “Is that really all you have to say after you walk in and find me close to death? With my mother as a vampire?”

Jimmy shrugged. “It is rather weird tow walk in on. However, I figure you can tell me the story as I’m taking you back to the coven, where you and these children belong.”

I sighed.

“Thank you, Jimmy.”