Saul the Wolf

2. Back At It Again

Charlie was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs.

I rolled my eyes at him and walked past. "I'm telling you not to come."

"Vampires heal fast," he said behind me.

"Want back-up?" Zaika called as we passed through the kitchen.

I glared at her. "Shut up." I let Charlie close the door behind me, since there was no way I could stop him from coming with me. Out of the whole group, Aaron knew the most about... well, about everything. His connections could get us places. I didn't want to do any of this, but since I had no choice, the best way of getting through it was finding easy ways in and out. The orange sky felt too pretty to shine on a group like us today.

"We have other ways of getting information," Charlie went on; I'd tuned him out at some point. "The sage I went to might have some clues. She could help us find the others."

"And where is she?"

"Far from here. It'd take a couple of days but—"

"Why take days when we can take minutes?"

Charlie was silent for a few seconds. "You know, you've become a lot less passive since we found out we're siblings. You seem angrier too."

"Hmm, I wonder why?"

He scoffed. "Does the idea of being related to monsters really repulse you?"

"It doesn't repulse me. It annoys me."

"What can I do to stop annoying you, then? Emalie—" He grabbed my arm and pulled us to a stop, and then he let go. Always a look of concern whenever he looked at me. "We're going to be spending a lot of time together, and I think it would help us both if we got along better. I want to be able to talk to you—talk with you."

"You know what I want? To not be bound to you. To not be a Protector. To not have to do anything like this. But we don't always get what we want, Charlie."

"No—we take it."

"Well, good luck with that." I started walking again, and he followed silently. Sometimes I just wanted to laugh at Charlie's concern. No—I didn't think of him or Aaron as a brother. Aaron's indifference felt just a little more appealing than Charlie's overbearing concern. Just a little.

Charlie led the way into one of the human farms houses, the places the coven had stored humans for blood. "Where did they go?" I asked. All of them seemed to be empty.

"Either they ran away during the chaos of last night, or some vampires took some food for the road." We went into one of the last rooms of the houses. Charlie knelt down in a closet, removing some of the carpeting to show a handle for a door.

"Newborn vampires were kept underneath humans?"

Charlie opened the trap door. "Better way to learn some self-control. They spend days smelling the humans above. Once they get used to it and are... well, sane, we let them out." He started climbing down. "The cells are just ten feet down."

I found the first rung with my foot and followed. The space felt really tight, which did not feel good. I kept my breathing as even as I could despite feeling the dark close in. It felt suffocating... and yet soothing at the same time. Maybe last night's sleeplessness was catching up.