The Blood Bracelets #1: Blood Bound

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

'Why did you bring her here, Animas?'

'Don't call me that, and you're the only one nearby I could think of.'

'This is the City – jump in a taxi and pretty much anything is nearby. What is she?'

'A girl? I know you haven't been this close to one in a while, but—'

'All right, smartass.'

Taryn's eyes cracked open, and instantly her mind knew she was in another place she didn't recognise. Her heart seemed to make her way into its throat with the realisation, and she swallowed hard around it, forcing it down, forcing calm on herself. She stared up at a plain cement ceiling, and then her eyes dropped down to her right to find the source of dim yellow light from a lamp on a nightstand.

Realising she was on a bed, Taryn sat up suddenly. She saw a man sitting at a round breakfast table with an open book beside him, the hood from his baggy jumper raised to shadow his face but she could see his dark eyes staring at her, wide with surprise as if he hadn't expected her to wake up.

'That's Jerry.'

She turned, finding Kael standing at a tall window that had an old curtain drawn over it. 'Where am I?'

'Jerry's,' said Kael, like it should've been obvious.

Taryn threw her gaze across the room and realised a room was all it was, albeit a large one. It was a loft apartment, where the bedroom opened to the lounge and the lounge to the kitchen. Several windows lined the walls, all tall and narrow, reaching to the ceiling, but the night was shut out by the ragged curtains. Heavy shadows were cast across the loft from the single lamp that was lighting the place, and even though these shadows weren't moving she was reminded of the creatures that had prohibited her from leaving the warehouse.

'Okay,' she said slowly, 'why am I here?'

'Because you blacked out,' Kael replied, 'and I didn't particularly feel like carrying you farther than necessary.'

Jerry scoffed. 'It's about time I relocated then.'

'Where'd you get that bracelet?' Kael asked her.

For a moment she forgot which bracelet he was talking about, until her attention was brought to the odd sensation at her wrist, like a warm tingling against her skin. She lifted her hand up in front of her eyes, seeing the blood-red bracelet dangling around her wrist.

'My uncle had it, he told me it was my mother's,' Taryn replied, remembering the conversation – and how Julian had told her not to touch it. 'I thought it broke back there but—'

'It didn't break, girl,' laughed Jerry and she saw Kael throw him a narrowed stare over his shoulder. Jerry's smile dropped from his face and, satisfied, he looked back to Taryn.

He held up his hand and she realised, with a gasp, that he now wore an identical bracelet. 'And guess what? It doesn't come off.'

'What?' she hissed and quickly tried to slip off her bracelet, because surely it should come off just as easily as she had put it on. She pulled and tugged, so much so that that her skin was turning pink at the pressure. It was as if it had shrunk, yet it looked exactly the same size.

'It's not coming off,' she said in realisation.

'Pretty sure we already established that,' muttered Jerry.

Taryn looked over at Kael for an explanation. 'What did you do to me?'

'I didn't do anything,' he retorted.