Chapter 18 pt. 1

At Warren’s they were just waking up so I rushed to my room and changed as fast as I could. I knew that if I lingered, I would get stuck with a sibling I didn’t know and possibly give myself away. I wouldn’t have stopped at all if I hadn’t noticed the shattered bits of phone lying on the floor near the door.

What would happen if I tried to call my brother again?

The rustling of my vampire siblings pulled me back and sent me running out of the mansion to the safety of Leo’s car.

“Everything alright?” he asked as I began pulling my hair into a ponytail.

“Yeah, I just didn’t want to be stopped by someone I didn’t remember.”

“Fair enough,” he mumbled, taking off down the road, heading to the Nest where I would be training with Kris until one of us gave up.

Leo escorted me all the way to the practice room where Kris was going to meet me. I asked him to wait with me but he said he had to go help with the interrogation of the fat man we had caught. I sighed, trying to be brave and accepted his kiss on my forehead before going into the room.

The room felt more like a cell than a practice room. Concrete walls wrapped me in silence with only the barred light above the center and the door for comfort. I turned back to face the door and found myself looking at everything from above.

Kris came in carrying two long poles, throwing one at my feet but not waiting for me to pick it up before attacking. There was nothing I could do. I was outside of my body and it wasn’t going to move by itself.

Then suddenly...,

...my body moved.

I had grabbed the pole Kris swung at me while looking up at myself out of my body. My eyes were completely black. I broke eye contact to look at the surprise on Kris’s face and everything became a crazy whirl of motion as the two fought below me. It was as if an animal had been released from its cage and was fighting Kris just to survive.

Then I saw what I was after and what I was about to do; fangs out, muscles coiled, plan in motion.

“No!” I screamed from above, trying desperately to get back to my body.

I looked up at myself again, breaking concentration for a split second and leaving Kris to slam the pole into my head where it shattered. My body crumpled to the floor and pieces of wood stayed suspended in the air as I finally pulled back to my body although I was unconscious.

“Raven! What the hell is going on? God damn it, wake up!”

I was being shaken.

Why was I asleep?

My head hurt.

Is that blood?

Awake.

Kris was saying something in my face but I couldn’t hear his words. There were things floating above us. Pieces of splintered wood. I reached out to touch one but as soon as I did, all of them burst into flame and fell as ash around us.

“Raven!”

There was his voice. Cutting through the silence like a knife and making me jump.

“Tell me what the hell is going on, now.”

“Did you hit me?” I wondered, not sure if it was a dream or if it had all actually happened as I rubbed my head where it had begun to hurt.

“Don’t change the subject. How do you have magic?”

“I was going to tell you but something happened.” I paused to look curiously at the falling ash. How had I done that?

Kris, who had me by the shoulders, shook me to bring me back to the conversation. “Tell me what?”

“Alizya is my great grandma. I’m a witch. She told me she bound my magic though,” I blurted, looking him in the eyes, slightly afraid of his anger.

All of a sudden, he slapped me. “This is not the time for jokes! What the hell is going on?”

My hand slid from my temple to my cheek, “Stop hitting me! I’m telling you the truth. Ask Leo if you don’t believe me.”

“Leo is doing his job. The one you ran away from.”

I narrowed my eyes at him angrily. “Fine, just compel me or whatever then. I can’t lie to you if you compel me right?”

He looked even more angry after I spoke than he had been before. “You can’t compel a vampire who drinks vampire blood,” he growled.

“But I did,” I muttered, now confused. “Is this some kind of new thing I can do?”

He sat back away from me and sighed, somehow releasing his anger. Maybe he knew that I really had no idea what was going on or maybe he was just giving up.

“You’re bleeding.”

“What? Are you letting me off the hook or something?”

“It means that I’m going to take you upstairs and you’re going to get the blood off your head before someone sees it.”

“What about training?”

He got to his feet before answering me. “It’s on hold until I know what’s going on. I swear, if this is one of your jokes, I will put you in a cell and leave you there.”

His tone sent shivers down my spine, but at the same time, something inside me wanted to fight with him again. When he held out his hand to help me up, I was tempted to pull him down and go for his throat. I was also tempted to try to run from him altogether and the two sides were at war inside me. Impatience got to him before I made up my mind and he grabbed me by my arm, dragging me to my feet and down the hall to an elevator. Neither of us spoke and I couldn’t look at him until we were at his apartment door.