"Go on, say it." I snap at Aiden the second we're home. "Give me a big old, I told you so. Blast me with one of your lectures on how you warned me that this was all a bad idea and he couldn't hide who he really was forever."
"Sounds like you got everything covered, so what else could I say?" Aiden shrugs. "But, I am sorry Sam."
"Sorry?"
"I know how badly you wanted it to be real. I'm sorry he disappointed you." He says instead and my rage goes from a burn to barely a simmer.
"Me too." It takes a moment for me to say it and as soon as I do, the hurt hits me hard.
I'm not sure how the next few days go. I cry. I sleep. I hide. I somehow manage to regain the company of Kitty back from Kyle as this time it's him who asks me to look after the cat while he goes away for a couple of days and so with the giant, tabby creature perched on my stomach we decide to live on the sofa from now on. My TV had also been neglected in recent weeks, so I was happy to give it the love and attention it too deserved and three, maybe four days later, I get a strange sense of dejavu as my answering machine picks up my mothers call.
"Your doorbell is broken. Come and open the bloody door!" She demands, making the cat leap away to hide behind the TV cabinet as best as his chubby little body allows.
Aiden is out. I cant remember where he said he was going and glancing around the room, everything is oddly clean. Slowly I rise, obeying her orders and go to open the front door. Bright, cruel sunlight pours in behind her and cringing I retreat back into the darker living room.
"Why are you here?" I ask, semi-curious but more annoyed at being disturbed.
Flopping down on the sofa, I can't help but feel satisfied as I know she is looking around and shocked at the state of the place, especially when compared to her last visit.
"Can't I come and see you without a reason?" She fakes how offended she is.
"No, because you've always complained about how far away I live and you never just pop in for a coffee." I stop. "Did Aiden call you?"
"No? Should he have?" She frowns, lifting my feet to sit beside me and plops them back into her lap. "I see you still have the cat."
I coax Kitty back over much to her dislike. "I do."
"I came because I'm worried about you. You've been even more proactive in ignoring my calls and emails. I even made one of them facebook things your brothers use and you haven't even added me as your friend!" Mum huffs, shooing Kitty away as he boldly approaches her for a pat. "Gwen added me as one of hers."
"Gwen doesn't have nearly half of the family drama that I do right now and I haven't been on the stupid thing for a couple of weeks!"
"So we're not friends anymore?" She asks sadly.
I roll my eyes. "Well, yeah, but facebook isn't the issue here."
"Darling I-"
"I know Mum." I sigh, not really wanting to get into it with her. So as a distraction I get up again to find my phone and then add her as friend. "There, all done."
She smiles but its more sad than anything else. "Where is Aiden?"
"Um, he's- out."
"Everything alright with you two?"
"Yeah. We're great." It was the one thing in my life I didn't have any doubts or questions about.
"We've never even talked about that night when-"
"We don't have to." I quickly tell her.
"Yes. We do. We need to talk about all of it Sammy." She sits up, reaching for my hand. "I don't even know where to begin."
"When you found the other people that had hybrids, what were they really like? I don't want to hear any more lies Mum. You owe me some truths." For someone not wanting to get into it, I guess I kind of did.
"You weren't like them. You were so tiny and frail. I spent hours worrying over you as a baby, constantly checking if you were breathing as you would sleep so deep and silently and feel so cold no matter how I bundled you up. You rarely cried, and getting you to feed was a struggle. You were just too tired most of the time and as soon as you'd start, you'd stop. My mother told me you were to weak for this world, to prepare myself for when you would finally give up." This time when she smiled, it was warm and genuine. "But you didn't. Even then you were a fighter and gods you were so beautiful. Your skin was like porcelain and you'd been born with all that dark hair that you kept. Well, except for this tiny little patch by your right ear that left you with a little bald spot."
She takes my hand and I let her.
"Your father hated seeing you struggling so much. In some ways he was more protective of you than I was; few were allowed to hold you. He was always scared they'd do something to hurt you, forget how little you were and treat you like any other pup. You know what little, chubby monsters your brothers were." Mum shrugs slightly. "I don't know how he found out about hybrids. He came home late one night from work, talking about vampires and how rare it was that it could even happen, and despite choosing to ignore what had happened between David and I, we couldn't anymore as your life depended on us facing the fact that you were different."
"You make it sound liked Dad actually cared."
"I've always told you he loves you, just in his own way."
"That way has sucked." I roll my eyes. "So he found these people with hybrids?"
"Yes. We told people we were going to see a specialist to see if there was anything that could be done for you, and drove to Seattle. He found the bar he'd heard about it and paid his contact to get us the details of a family that apparently had a daughter like you. They were reluctant to start with, obviously as wary with strangers as what we were and things started out well. We never went into too many details, just the basics and they seemed to know what you needed. Within days you were different. We had to mix, blood, with your bottles for you to take them. Even just from that you became more alert. Your skin wasn't so cold. You gained nearly three hundred grams within that first week!" She closed her eyes, a few tears appearing to run down her cheek. "We'd been there nearly two weeks when Eliza asked what we were going to do with you."
"Eliza?"
"The other mother. Her daughter was nearly two, but she wasn't like any two year old I'd ever come across before." Mum shuddered. "They used to dose her with a sedative, it was the only way they could control that poor little girl. Her bedroom was more like a cage. Bars on the window with bullet proof glass, I'll never forget how sad she looked in there."
"She was a baby." I whispered.
"They offered to take you. Told us we wouldn't be able to keep you a secret once you started to grow. Your moods would be unpredictable, you'd be stronger than the average wolf pup and once your fangs appeared your urges to hunt and to feed on anything made you a danger to the world, not just us. It was a burden to keep her alive they said, if we insisted on doing the same with you, our lives would never be our own again. We'd have to keep you contained, fed and sedated too."
"But you didn't?" My heart began to thump in my chest as my mind raced backwards to see if there was some childhood memory I'd chosen to forget.
"Of course not!" She sounded so offended I'd even consider it.
"What was her name?"
"They never told us. I don't even know if they gave her one, or if she was even really their daughter." Mum admitted. "From there, I wanted us to leave. Her husbands name was George, and he was a horrible man. Eliza hid her true nature well, but he set me on edge the second we arrived. Your father thought I was being paranoid, until a couple of days later her told me we were going, now, and if we couldn't get everything in the car within one trip, it was staying at the hotel. He never spoke until we were on the highway home and oh, Samara."
"What, what happened?"
"The things he saw. It wasn't just the girl they had. There were others, some in cages or just chained to the ground. The house we went to was all fake. George had taken your dad to their main property miles out of the city. They were insane, he told me. There was nothing human about them anymore. The conditions they were kept in I wouldn't even put your cat through it. They were just babies. Children. The oldest he saw was a young man, maybe eighteen and-" Her voice broke as she covered her eyes with her hand. "The marks that covered his body... I know it still haunts your dad."
"But you said before I was three when this happened, now I'm a baby? And why was he still in contact with them?" I demanded, unsure what to think. More lies?
"It wasn't them we took you to when you were older. There are good people out there too you know and we weren't going to risk making the same mistake as before. Some that want to help those poor darlings and all we wanted to do was keep you safe. They understood why were nervous, and didn't want to get involved, but helped us anyway. You weren't showing any signs of what you would be and most people like you are dominated by a certain gene. We knew you thrived with blood in your diet, its why you prefer your meat so raw, but never fed it to you like we did in those earlier days. I think we were worried that giving you too much would make you become unstable like those other children. They told us its more than that, it's something in the person to start with, but who knows. Not all that were rescued could be saved either."
She took a deep breath, got up and grabbed herself a glass of water.
"You never took the scent up of a vampire of a shifter. You were just, human. Our little Samara. We hated seeing you suffer, unable to keep up with your brothers and the other kids. That was why your Dad kept in contact with them, or so he tells me now. He was learning what he could so that perhaps we could do something to help you, but instead all we could do was love you."
"Yeah well, you perhaps, but Dad-"
"Loves you as he loves your brothers. He only feels like he has failed you and well, he's always been the serious type." She sighs. "All of this, now, is killing him Sammy. Will you just consider sitting down with us, talking this out?"
"If it meant so much to him, maybe he would have come with you." I decide.
"Well, I have left him sitting in the car this whole time." She shrugs.
I think she's joking. Getting up I go to the front window and sure enough he's in the car on his iPad.
"We're only here because I was sick of him lurking by the front door when ever we heard an unfamiliar car and he wondered if it was you coming home." Mum added.
"Mum, something happened the other night." I say, not able to meet her eyes now. "I've been spending time with David, getting to know him and letting him get to know me."
"Your brothers mentioned it."
"I haven't told them what happened the other night."
"Did you want to tell us?" She asked, and nodding she patted my shoulder and went outside to wave my dad inside.
We sat comfortably yet oddly awkwardly in my living room, and before I got into it Aiden returned. His arms loaded with groceries, he froze before carrying on like there was nothing usual for him to be living here or that my parents weren't in the house. Mum made small talk with him, gushing a little too much over how good it was to see him again and how well he was looking. Dad and I sat in silence, yet the words that needed to be said sat on the tips of our tongues.
"Samara." He started, and looking at him now I only saw a broken, old man. Had I been blinded by what I thought I had wanted all these years to miss what I actually did have? "I'm sorry."
"I believe you." Just like before, forgiveness came swiftly and easily. Maybe it always would. "And it's ok."
"Thank you." It's more of a whisper, but I heard it.
Aiden comes in and sits beside me, while Mum sits opposite Dad, constantly looking at him like at any second he might disappear. I tell them everything that been going on, finishing with the other night and the disaster that it was.
"So, what now?" Mum asked first.
"I'm not sure."
"Do you know this vampire, Aiden?" Dad asked cautiously.
"Our previous meetings weren't pleasant." He answered. "He isn't someone to get involved with and nothing he does is done spontaneously. He could have been planning this whole thing for months."
"Years even?" Mum suggested. "I mean, what if he knew about Samara this whole time and only now decides to act. He could have had the letter I sent."
"Why now then?" I wonder.
"Because you have me." Aiden growled. "Two birds. One stone."
"There is no way he could have known-"
"There is if he has a seer or a witch that was powerful enough." He got out his phone and called Brianna. When she didn't answer, he sent her a text. "When you live forever, waiting ten, twenty years even, is no time at all. Hell, I've been waiting three for my revenge and that's barely a second in time for him."
"Could he be that petty and hold a grudge for all that time to even want to bother now?" It seemed a bit far fetched.
"You don't know vampires." Everyone seemed to say at once.
"And your sire did kill his soulmate." Aiden reminded me. "I'd wait a lot longer in order to get my revenge should anyone do anything to you."
"So what do we do?" Mum asked.
"Nothing. I'll speak to Brianna and see what they can do. If Antonino is behind this, then we're going to need some extra help."
It took some coaxing, but my parents finally left to go back home. I promised to keep them informed, but really I just didn't want my brothers fending for themselves. I had Aiden and soon a whole coven on my side. Spells were soon being cast, things were covered in salt, shapes drawn with fire into the air and I spread out on the sofa with Kitty as we watched Friends re-runs.
"You seem rather, relaxed." Aiden pointed out as he came in with soup that he'd put on to cook while my parents were still here.
"I feel relaxed."
"Sure you're not psychic?" Brianna asked, sitting on the floor by the TV. Kitty instantly abandoned me to join here, nudging her hand as if he expected her to share what was in the bowl. "I love your soup and you just happened to make it today?"
"It was cold this morning, felt like soup weather." Aiden shrugged.
"What do we do now?" I'm not sure I really care.
"For the most part, wait. If anyone tries any kind of magic, we'll feel it. Someone tries to break into your property or seeks to harm you, the protection spells will stop them. At least stop them long enough for us to get here."
"You're safe." Aiden assured me.
"And you?"
"Also safe."
For a second, I think about David. Was he preparing himself for battle to?
Should I even care?
We played a couple of rounds of poker, talked about a new movie we'd all seen and when I started to feel the promise of dawns arrival, Brianna headed to my still clean guest room while Aiden and I went straight to bed.
I was exhausted, so when I woke up what felt like a minute later, I was surprised to find myself in my bedroom at home. How did I get here?
Going downstairs everything was quiet, too quiet and with the soft golden light of the morning filling the kitchen area I looked around confused. Something was quite right here.
"Hello little vampire."
Spinning around, a man I didn't know sat at the dining table. Arms crossed over his chest, he leaned back in the chair like it was the most natural place for him to be.
"Come, sit." He motioned to the chair beside him and while I found myself siting, I chose to sit opposite him instead.
He was clearly European, Italian perhaps with dark hair, olive skin and deep brown eyes. Like Aiden, he was broad shouldered and clearly tall; much bigger than I was. His voice held an accent I wasn't familiar with and as I sat, I looked around nervously still unsure what was going on.
"You know my name?" He asked.
"Antonino." I answered.
"Clever girl." Antonino smiled to reveal his fangs though I don't think it was on purpose or meant as a threat. "Relax. Surely you know the most basic of vampire talents, yes?"
I frowned. "Not quite."
"This is nothing more than a dream little vampire. Surely your sire would have taught you- never mind. Perhaps your other half then, would have told you about what we can do in the sleep world?"
He waited for my response and when there wasn't one I wanted to give him, he smirked.
"It's rather fascinating, you see you simply need a drop of blood, just one, of someone related or of the person you wish to visit. When we enter our daylight slumber, thinking of that person, well, here we are." He taunted, and I felt my face pale.
"How-" I didn't have to ask as Luke's wolf form appeared on the table and that pure, hot rage flooded me. "If you have hurt him, or any of them I swear I will-"
"Relax little vampire." He hushed, the wolf vanishing. "I didn't say when or how we got the blood. I've had this one on ice for a few weeks now."
My mind raced. "That was you?"
"Mr Henson often takes the fall for my actions. Yet even the best students end up trying to defy their master at some point, some sooner than others. A lot sooner." He mused bitterly.
"What do you want?" I finally ask.
"Good question, I'm glad you asked. But really, this isn't about me its about you. How about we make a little deal?"
"I'm listening."
"I agree with everyone when they say you're the innocent party in all of this. You are. You never asked for a traitorous father, but you got one. Yes? You never asked for your other half to be a bastard abomination, but he is. You understand? I am on your side here." My hands curled into fists as I focused on the sting on my nails cutting into my palm unsure where this was going. "Bring me David Henson and I will let you, and your mate live. I will forget you both even exist and let you live out your insignificant little lives. Understood?"
"But-"
"No, no, no. Yes. You say yes Antonino, si, I will." He stood up and the familiar home vanished until it was just us in my bedroom. Aiden still slept peacefully on the bed beside my still form. "You just found your love. I know how painful it can be to lose them and truly signora, I am not a bad man. I just want, what I want."
"Why can't you just get him yourself? I've heard you are powerful and someone to be feared."
"Flattery will get you nowhere little vampire." He's in front of me before I can process it, my chin in his hands as the pressure on my jaw has me gasping in agony. Forcing my head up, he looks me in the eye and what stares back at me is terrifying. "Interesting. If not for your mother, I'd say you were a diamond. It's, almost as if. Show me your fangs."
He forces my jaw down and tears spring to my eyes as my mouth is opened. Are they even there? It isn't something I really have control over, and maybe he knows it as Antonino uses one of his to slice open his thumb before allowing a few drops of his blood to cover my lips. This isn't real, but the taste is euphoric. Even from the bed I can hear myself moan from the sensation and then he presses down on my tooth as sure enough, the fangs emerge.
"That is something. It's almost as if you were a born a vampire, not a mistake at all. Despite his flaws, David did one thing right." He lets me go and I instantly put my hand up to my chin - more so to make sure he didn't just break it off. "So, we have a deal, yes?"
I say nothing, unsure if I can or if there even the option to say no.
"Good. How about Friday night at that cemetery he loves so much." He decides, and then he's gone.
I awake with a gasp to find it's late afternoon and Aiden isn't beside me. I can hear the shower running and the soft hum of him singing something in there. From the living room the TV is on low and I remember Brianna was here. I touch my jaw, my teeth and then grab my phone, texting Luke to make sure they're all ok.
"Afternoon." Aiden greets casually, water runs down his chest and even the towel loosely tied around his waist doesn't offer the distraction it normally should. "Sammy, what's wrong?"
"I had, there was this dream, and it was so real." I started, telling him what happened.
"Well you until tomorrow night then to work out what you want to do." He tells me cautiously and I was afraid he was going to say that.
"Can't we fight him or witch him or something instead? Tell David, let him defend himself with his dark magic and shit. Let them have at it and get them to leave the rest of us alone?" I wonder.
"If that's what he wants, we're going to have to give him that. We could fight, but I don't like our chances. I've tried in the past, it's never ended well."
"But I can help you this time?" The look he gave me told what he thought of that. "Maybe you and David could join up, defeat a common enemy?"
Though the thought of Aiden putting himself at risk made me want to throw up.
"Well, the first decision you have to make is whether or not you're going to tell David whats going on, but either way I'd suggest you make sure he's at that cemetery tomorrow night."
I was still angry at David, but was I still angry enough to send him to slaughter, even if it meant saving everyone else?
______________
Almost at the eeeend...
Honestly, I didn't think we'd ever get here, but I can see the finish line now!