The Rebel

1. Submitting to Daddy Dearest

ATHENA

    "ANY last words?" My Father asked kindly, mirth flashing in his eyes.

    The vampire spit at his feet in response.

    "Alright, then," Father smiled and waved his hand toward the man holding the axe.

    The man nodded and immediately brought the axe down on the vampire's neck. The vampire screamed in agony, flailing helplessly as he tried to escape.

    I winced, wanting to look away but knowing I couldn't. Father would notice and call me too squeamish. I noticed my three younger sister's trying to hide their own expressions of nausea.

    Finally, after eight rough blows to the neck, the vampire fell silent and limp, succumbing to death.

    The man holding the axe - Liall, I thought distantly - straightened up and fixed his bloody clothes.

    As wizards, we could have used one of our many potions that could easily and quickly poison the vampire. However, my Father loved a good show and preferred the more prolonged, agonizing way: the axe.

    "Next!" Father called, waving in the next vampire on trial.

    His "crime" was that he existed.

    As a vampire, he was absolutely hated by our kingdom. We were enemies: us, the sorcerers, and them, the bloodsuckers. Unfortunately for him, he was caught across the border between our two kinds and was now awaiting his fate.

    It would be death.

    Father, keen on luring the prisoners into the illusion that they had a chance of survival, asked, "Do you think the royal family for your kind would agree to a trade for you?"

    The vampire, himself keen on trying to survive, nodded vigorously. "Yes, Your Highness."

    So this vampire was a scrounger.

    In the many, many vampire trials conducted within those four walls, I had decided that there were two kinds of prisoners on trial:

    One: A scrapper. This kind, like the first executed vampire, refused to bow down to our kind to our royal family. He or she would glare in contempt at us, insult us, call us every slur they could think of, and finally, spit at us.

    Two: A scrounger. This kind, like the second soon-to-be executed vampire, attempted everything they thought of to escape. Some would fight against the guards holding them down, others would run, and a few would try to bargain with us.

    I preferred the scrappers.

    I understood that they hated us. What reason did they have to think otherwise? We were about to murder them.

    Of course they wouldn't take kindly to that!

    That's why I preferred them. At least they understood that they had no chance of survival, and they accepted that by spiting us in any way they could. With the scroungers, it was hard to watch as they grasped at any miniscule detail that could save them. Meaningless details that would never convince my father that they deserved to live.

    The scrounger's eyes rapidly surveyed the room, taking in every door, every window, and every wizard. I could practically hear his thoughts as a steady rhythm of escape, escape, escape.