UNLEASHED - a Valentine's Anthology

Love in a Vampire Wasteland

However, I ran straight, following the path of the mystery person. They were several feet ahead and racing toward a field of weeds as tall as our shoulders—which a person could easily get lost inside.

"Stop!" I yelled, but of course, they kept going.

Despite the heat, this person was dressed in black from head to toe, with their head covered, and zero signature pieces to identify which faction they came from. Which meant there was only one other explanation.

This person was an outcast.

And outcasts were often shunned by their people after committing a betrayal. This made them an easy target for vampires to scoop up and brainwash into servitude.

As the mystery person wove around empty barrels, I leapt over them, chipping away at the distance between us. They were so close I could almost reach out and grab a handful of their sweater. However, that's when an arrow pierced their leg, and the person released an animalistic screech. Henry tackled them to the ground, causing the arrow to snap, and another scream to slice the air, but when he flipped the person over, we were met with wild, terrified eyes belonging to a young woman.

"Why did you run from us!" Henry stretched his bow, a fresh arrow aimed as he placed his boot on top of her chest.

She stared at us, her hands surrendered as a swell of tears glazed her hazel irises. Judging by the quiver in her bottom lip, she was more scared of us, than we needed to be of her.

"Henry, take it easy..." I placed my hand on his shoulder, but he reprimanded me.

"What did I tell you about being foolish? She could be one of them!"

"But they only come out at night..."

"Again, you are foolish, Armand. She could be a daywalker."

"I'm not!" she cried.

"Show us your teeth," Henry demanded, but when she didn't oblige, he parted her lips with the tip of his arrow, the sharp edge grazing her gums and drawing blood as she jerked away.

"Curse you and your family!" she shouted.

Tears trickled down to her temples as her face contorted and a glop of blood flew from her lips, landing on Henry's thigh.

"You little—"

Before he could finish the sentence, I hauled him off of her and placed myself between them. "Can't you see she's just scared!"

"You stupid boy." He shoved me. "You'll never fill your father's shoes with such a delicate mind like yours."

"She's bleeding. It's red. Vampires don't have red blood." I motioned to her. "And judging by her clothes, she isn't from around here."

"Which means she's dangerous." Henry raised his bow, but I smashed his arms down.

"Are you mad!"

"Move, you stupid boy. Vampires use humans as spies," he snarled while shoving me with his shoulder.

It wasn't like me to defy my mentor, but I knew deep in my gut, Henry was wrong. So, as he raised the bow once more, and his arm stretched to aim, I did the most treacherous act of stepping behind him and slicing a blade across his throat. He didn't understand what was happening as his hands slapped the wound on his neck.

Frankly, I wasn't aware of what I had done either.

Even as I glanced at the blood smeared across the knife clutched in my fist, it felt so foreign glinting under the scorching sun. I couldn't even recognize my reflection in the metal because the young man who murdered his mentor to save a stranger, was not the same young man who woke up earlier that day.