Lessons of the Heart and the Liquid it Pumps ||

68: A Taste of Brutality

A little jolt of warmth ran through my fingertips as I squeezed Matthew’s hand tighter yet. After the first few times it happened he stopped shooting surprised glances at me whenever my body produced the odd jolt of warming electricity.  As much as it bothered me to be holding anyone’s hand but Collin’s, I didn’t mind the feeling as much as I thought I would. Rather it was a little reminder that I was in good hands and that I wasn’t the one being watched by a pack of rowdy vampires.

The cheer I was expecting rang out in happy murmurs from the vampires around me. Another death meant another snack to enjoy. Glad for the break in combat I finally released Matthew’s hand and flexed my fingers. They’d grown stiff with how tightly I’d clutch his hand during the twisted matches that we’d been sitting through. Once I no longer needed his hand over my eyes it’d gone straight to being squeezed in my grip as I watched mesmerized.

It wasn’t that the fights had gotten any less gory. Oh no, as I soon came to find, they all pushed their own buttons on how inhumanely cruel they were. The only good thing was that I’d adapted to take the violence; something I would have said was impossible. Yet here I sat on the edge of Matthew’s lap- as near to the so called battleground as I could get, clutching only his hand when whoever I was silently rooting for lost. Surprisingly it wasn’t always the human hunters who I found myself rooting for. Every now and then a vampire would come along that I’d hope to win.

Matthew’s soft voice in my ear both surprised me and tore me from my mindless transfixed gaze on the circular fighting stone as it was being wiped clear of blood by a girl not much older than myself. “Elizabeth,” he breathed, calling me by the false name I’d given him the first time we’d met, “are you hungry?”

I turned to look at him, his familiar soft emerald eyes calming my nerves quickly. The last fight had lasted so long I wouldn’t have been surprised if my eyelids were stunned open. I hadn’t been able to look away for a single second. It wasn’t that I was enjoying these barbaric displays of a twisted form of entertainment. Rather I felt as though with every move they made I was learning something. My mind registered what move to make next and when a fight had reached the point of a determined winner.

His question took a moment to register before I could give a small nod in response. “Yes, a little.” How had he known that my stomach had started to turn into knots not because of the bloody manner of the games but because I’d grown hungry? Had my stomach growled and given me away?

As if sensing my questions he gave a gentle smile and positioned a few curls of my deep golden brown hair in front of my shoulder before I could stop him. “It’s a short intermission in which we feed and mingle. The games are intended to be a social event for my kind.”

“Then perhaps we should be allowed to choose who we sit by?” Maria muttered, loud enough for us to hear. “I really am tired of games filled with silence.” She was, of course, referring to us.

Matthew had tried to make conversation for the first few minutes of the games but that ceased as soon as I’d removed his hand from my eyes and began to watch. His voice was no longer needed to soothe my nerves and so he stopped making small talk with Maria and began to watch the games as well. Every now and then I’d felt his eyes on the back of my head, observing my body as I watched. I couldn’t help but tense up every now and then as my nerves responded as though I were one of the people in the center.