I Am A Monster

I Am A Monster : Chapter 51

Chapter 51

It's December twenty-eighth. I'm sitting on my bed, playing with my fingers. Emma sits on the multicolored rug, poring over the same leather book I saw her reading the first day that I arrived here. The leather binding the book is ripped and old and dusty, and the yellow, nearly brown pages crinkle whenever she turns a page, so she handles it with extreme care. I close my eyes, breathing in a smell of clean air and pine needles. My feet are hanging off the side of the bed, swinging up and down, my muddy combat boots falling off halfway. I'm getting so nervous that I can't think straight. Just the other day, I walked straight into someone and hadn't even realized that they had been there a moment before. I apologized and then continued walking, bumping into another person at the corner, the same boy who had fallen three times when me, Amari, and the red-haired girl had raced across the hall.
I kick off my boots; they fall four feet to the floor with loud sounds of rubber against wood, landing sideways a foot away from each other a moment later. Emma's head snaps up, but when she sees my boots she growls, a low, deep growl deep in her throat, one of anger and irritation, before going back to her reading. My mind is so muddled that I can barely register the fact that my own sister just growled at me like I was another enemy.
"Emma," I say, "is Amari going to live?"
"How do I know?" she snaps coldly, looking up from the book and holding her place with her index finger. "You're the one who made the prophecy."
The expression on my face must be pretty strange, because Emma's expression softens.
"I know you're lost," she says quietly, putting her book down, but it's still open on the floor so that she doesn't lose her page. "Don't worry, soon it'll be all over, no matter what happens."
I look down at my hands, not letting her see me cry. The tears come, quick and fast, streaming down my face and falling into my lap. "For the good or the bad?" I croak, my voice thick.
"I don't know, Bree," she replies honestly. I can feel her eyes on me for a long time, before she finally sighs. I look out of the corner of my eyes to see her picking up her book and disappearing between the pages.
"What's what book about?" I ask, wiping the tears away with the back of my wrist and pretending to rub my eyes, so that I have an excuse.
"It's top secret," Emma admits. "They switched my job--I'm a Witch now."
"A Witch?" I ask, so surprised that I forget that I've just cried and look up.
"Hey, why are you crying?"
"Um..." I self-consciously wipe my sleeve over my eyes. "I...miss Mom and Dad," I lie. "But tell me about this Witch thing."
"Well," she says, clearing her throat uncomfortably, "they're in the process of changing my blood status. They're creating a few Witch cells and when they finish them they're going to transplant them into my body. Then I can be the Witch of the castle--I'll be nearly invincible, I'll be powerful, I'll be able to use magic to heal people instantly--loads of awesome stuff."
"Cool," I say, my voice empty and hollow.
"Are you...are you missing Mark?" she asks quietly.
"No!" I deny. "Well...now that you mention it...."
"Damn it," she mutters. "That spell that Jacob did, that was supposed to make you move on more easily, and forget about him more quickly--"
"Forget? Forget him?" I explode, wiping the remainder of my tears off my face quickly with my sleeve, fuming.
"Well, yeah..." she says, somewhat sheepishly. "The spell Jacob did, it helped with the grief because you could forget him...."
She watches me anxiously as I breathe deeply through my nose, my hands clenched into fists, my teeth clenched together and standing rigidly in front of her, seething.
"And you knew about this for how long?" I demand, my voice raising slightly, my nails biting into my palms.
"Um--since he made the spell," she mutters, looking down at her hands.
I stop clenching my fists and look at my hands, watching the marks from my nails slowly fade. My breathing returns to normal, but I'm still extremely mad at Emma. How could she not tell me that Jacob had been making me forget my mate? How could she not explain why I had forgotten...him...so easily?
"And you were never planning to tell me?" I ask, my breathing becoming quick and uneven again as I struggle to keep my anger under control.
"Well--eventually...." she murmurs. Then her voice goes back to normal, and she looks up at me through her long, thick lashes. "Bree, there are times like these where when someone loses their mate, they lose the will to live, or become insane, or kill themself, or become depressed--did you really think I was going to let that happen to you? You're my sister."
"Then why didn't you tell me your name was Kathy Jones, and that you're my sister?" I counter. My lips are pulled back over my gleaming, crooked, gritted teeth, my eyes narrowed to slits.
She looks at me pleadingly, almost beseechingly. I look back at her stonily.
"Bree, I just couldn't!" she cries, sudden tears streaking down her cheeks. Her voice is thick and croaky, her lashes wet, her blue eyes becoming red and puffy. "Don't you realize how hard it was for me to think about the past, about Mom and Dad and you, and to think that you were all dead?"
"You gave up on me?" I ask quietly.
"Bree!" she sobs.
My voice is suddenly raised, pulsing with rage. "I was able to think about my past! What is it with you, are you an exception?"
"I'm not you!" she screams at me. Each word seems to pierce me like a dagger, quick and going deep into me, causing so much pain.
"Don't you think I know that? I'm not an idiot!" I yell back. My voice isn't a scream, but it's insanely loud.
She puts her head in her hands, sobbing. "I know," she chokes out, blinking rapidly and trying to stem the tears still flowing from both eyes. Emma looks away.
I'm too worked up to apologize. I'm angry at everyone right now; I'm angry at Mom and Dad for leaving me, I'm angry at Sabrina for not rescuing me and Amari earlier, I'm angry at Amari for not giving me enough hope, I'm angry at Emma for not telling me she was my sister and for lying to me, even at Dylan, for being annoying and making my life worse. I'm even mad at myself, for not doing all of the awful things I've did--rejecting Mark as my mate, screaming at Emma, killing vampires in cold blood when I could have killed them quickly, without the fear, without the thoughts that the girl in front of them was a monster. Leaving my father to die, alone, killed by an evil, mirthless vampire.
Emma runs from the room, and I hear her sob and then the sound of a door slamming.
The tears slip out from under my closed eyelids, as I battle my emotions so fiercely that I fall to the floor. My hands clutch my head, and my sobs are so heartbroken that I feel like they're reaching deep inside of me, wrenching out all of the happy emotions and discarding them. I force in a scream of anguish and bury my head in my arms, sobbing silently, my shoulders shaking.
I am a monster, I think to myself hopelessly. There's no denying it.

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