Chapter 21

Alina

By the time Jordan dropped me off in front of my apartment, it was almost eleven-thirty in the evening. I had never been out till this late. The traffic was awful tonight, but the ride had been good. Jordan was a very funny guy, and I laughed the entire night away at his ridiculous jokes. He even gave me an inside scoop on Erick’s childhood and about his hidden phobias. My thoughts did occasionally wander off to the conversation I had with Papa and how I could persuade Erick into confessing the whole truth, but other than that, I had a wonderful evening. Now, I was starving for some spaghetti that I made before leaving for the hospital.
However, as soon as Jordan drove away, my mind drifted into darker topics. Did I even want to know the whole truth? I couldn’t also ignore the fact that I didn’t really remember much about that night four years ago. I remembered Erick coming into my old house drunk as fuck and ripping the door off its hinges. Then he just attacked me. I woke up the next morning bruised and sore, but Erick hadn’t been any better himself.
Shit! How could I have forgotten that! I had no idea what hangover felt like for vampires, and I remembered Erick telling me that it was very difficult for a vampire to get drunk. His eyes werered-rimmed, and he looked almost white as if someone had sucked the life out of him. Damn it! If only I could remember more. Sometimes, if I tried hard enough, I could remember a glimpse or two from that night but nothing more.
By the time I reached my floor, I had been so engrossed in my thoughts that I didn’t notice the eerily silent neighbourhood and the lack of guards at my doorstep, but I did notice the unusual splattering sound as my ballet flats hit something wet on the tiled floor right outside my apartment.
“What the?” Looking down, I felt my heart stop as I saw my own reflection on the floor in a puddle of wet, dark red liquid.
Blood.
It was all over the floor.
Choking back a scream, I dug out my apartment keys as fast as my trembling hands would let me. However, they dropped out of my hands and onto the wet puddle as soon as I got them out because my eyes were focused on something else in front of me.
On the other side of the hallway lay several bodies, all motionless. They looked like they were sleeping peacefully if you ignored the torn limbs. One person was lacking his entire body, and his head cut off from the neck. His name was Kenneth. He was one of the day guards who often drove me to my office. His head laid in the midst of a tangle of bodies, all torn and shredded. It was as if their lives held no value to anyone, as if I hadn’t seen them alive earlier this evening when I left for the hospital.
Something hard and wet landed on my shoulder, making me scream and jerk back. It fell in front of me, leaving a splatter of blood down my arm.
It was a hand. A hand cut off at the shoulders.
Then a gust of wind whooshed past me before I could turn and run down the stairs.
“Mia! Kendrick!” I called out as loud as I could, but my voice wouldn’t work. It came out choked and stuttering.
“They won’t make it, Alina. You’re all alone, you see.” The voice sounded so pleasant, it was impossible to believe it came from the midst of the massacre.
“No...” I took a step backwards by instinct, almost slipping on the blood as I realized whose voice it was.
“Why doesn’t it work on you, Alina?” He materialised before me out of nowhere, standing in front of the macabre tangle of bodies. His head was tilted to one side, his face holding genuine curiosity, and his entire body covered in dried blood. I could tell his jacket and pants had been white by a few spots that survived the onslaught. It was like he bathed in the blood of the fallen. I focused on Emiel instead so that my eyes wouldn’t wander to the gruesome scene behind him. “Even Erick couldn’t escape it, so why doesn’t it work on you?”
I backed away from the man. He looked so much like Erick and yet, just being near him made my skin crawl. Right at this moment, even I couldn’t convince myself that they were brothers. How could two people who looked exactly alike be so different?
“You didn’t answer me. I don’t like waiting.” His voice was so, so sweet, but his eyes glowed red. I had never seen a vampire’s eyes go red, not during the short time I had known them.
I went to back away from him further, but my shoes slipped on another puddle right behind me, sending me sprawled across the floor and my arm twisting at an odd angle as I fell on top of it. I heard a snap of bones before a scream tore out of me at the blinding intensity of the pain.
“Aww, how sad! You didn’t even let me be part of the fun,” I heard him say in a rueful tone. I tried to breathe past the pain and think.
Sucking in a huge gulp of air, I stopped breathing and flipped onto my back while using my good hand to remove the broken one from under me. Another scream left my lips at the impact the movement had on my broken arm. My face and chest were now covered with the manifestation of death.
Where was everyone else? Why weren’t people coming out of their rooms to see all the fuss? I had screamed loud enough to wake everyone up by now, then why wasn’t anyone coming?
I twisted my head around with much difficulty to look at the other two doors on this floor only to meet eyes of startling red as Emil knelt beside my head. Biting back a scream at the sight of him so near me, I didn’t break eye contact in hopes of finding out even a nibble of information about what he did to everyone in my building and what he planned to do next.
“I didn’t kill them if that’s what you’re thinking. I only told them to go to bed early and not wake up even if they heard anything.” For some reason, he looked horrified at the thought of hurting my neighbours. “They were nice. It’s the other vampires who weren’t nice, so I killed them.”
I almost laughed at the situation. He was truly a psychopath. He didn’t kill a bunch of weak humans because they were nice. Yet, he mutilated all the vampires in the vicinity. Somehow, this bit of news also gave me relief that Kendrick might still be alive. Before I could ask that question, he was talking again.
“I could heal that, you know. You won’t hurt anymore.”
I was instantly shaking my head. I would rather die than drink his blood! Of course! The vial of his blood was still inside my purse, and I still had the bag slung over my shoulder! The only problem was, the bag was attached to my broken arm. I had to get it with that arm instead of the good one, or Emiel would know instantly. So I tried to distract him while I tried with every bit of willpower I had left to reach for the vial with my broken arm.
“W-why did you t-try to killme t-then?” It was hard to move even one single finger on my left arm, but near death adrenaline rush kept me going. The bag wasn’t far. In fact, it was right under my injured arm, but that arm was almost impossible to move and already starting to swell. Once it has swelled up, it would be utterly impossible to move it.
“Oh, I don’t want to kill you! You’re bait!” His words startled me into pausing my movements for just a second before I moved my fingers inside the open zipper of my bag centimetre by painful centimetre.
“W-what?” I asked, my voice coming out breathless.
Instead of answering, he smiled wide, showing me awfully sharp fangs that were covered with blood. “That I can’t tellyou,Alina. Now, answer me. Why doesn’t my compulsion work on you?” He resettled himself so that he was sitting cross-legged on the floor while looking down at me. His behaviour resembled that of a child excited to hear fairy tales from his grandmother. Somehow, his entire behaviour was childish. If I think back on it, he behaved in a similar way that day on the party right before he went to throw me off a cliff.
“I-I don’t know.” I felt the breath get knocked right out of me as my hands touched the glass vial, and in doing so, stretched some of the injured muscles. “I-I’m immune...”
“Nonsense! My compulsion works every time!” He frowned, almost agitated. “Even vampires can’t escape me, you see! Even Erick couldn’t escape it when I told him to hurt you that night! It almost worked! Almost! An— What are you doing?”
I sucked in a breath as his eyes followed my injured arm. With all the agility I could muster, I tightened my fingers around the vial before he sent me flying across the hallway to land a few feet away from the massacre site.
I was too shocked to scream, and my sides and arm felt completely numb. It took a minute for me to register that the impact broke the glass vial in my left arm and that the shards had pierced my fingers, mixing Erick’s and my blood together.
No.
I couldn’t let his blood drain out of the vial! He was my only hope of getting out of here alive.
With a final burst of adrenaline, I brought my hugely swollen left arm to my face and tipped what was left of the vial into my mouth. It wasn’t much. It was probably just a teaspoon, but Erick’s blood was strong. It should help.
ERICK!
I hoped with all my might that he had heard me and that my voice had reached him somehow. I couldn’t tell for sure, though. I could already see dark spots dance around my vision.
After that, all I heard is a faint yell in the background and then.... nothing.

****

Alina!
Alina!
I gasped awake, expecting the pain to hit me full force, but it never came.
A cool breeze sweeping across my face had me snapping my eyes open to find myself on the pavement right outside my apartment building.
I turned my head to inspect my arm, scared that the only reason I couldn’t feel anything was because the swelling and broken bones had done permanent damage to my left hand. To my surprise, I found it unscratched and perfectly normal sized. Startled, I lifted the hand up with ease and brought it closer to my face to inspect my fingers. It was impossible! I had felt the shards pierce my skin and had seen the jagged edges of glass poking out of my fingers. However, what I saw now was clear, unbroken skin. Oh!
Erick’s blood! Vampire blood had the power to heal and form mental bonds, which meant I could now contact him!
Erick?
I tried calling him, but there was no answer.
Erick? I tried again, but to no avail.
“Alina! Can you hear me?” A figure tilted his head so I could look at him.
I was too tired. I could open my eyes, but everything was hazy.
I felt the wind. He was carrying me. There were vampires, red eyes, and blood.
I gasped, clutching my head as the memory and pain threatened to take me under. “Erick! He was here! He came for me.”
“Erick!” I yelled, letting go of my head and standing up on wobbly feet. He was here somewhere, and I had to find him. It was a trap. Chances were, Emiel knew about the vial of Erick’s blood. He simply used me to draw Erick out.
The night air was cool as it hit my bare arms and feet. Dawn would be breaking soon, and all the people who Emiel had compelled would be waking up with no memory of last night or even of having heard anything.
I hurried up the stairs to my floor, almost falling off the staircase a million times. My vision kept blurring, and my head was killing me. I had to sit down on the stairs and take small breaks before my vision cleared completely, and I was able to walk again. I reached my floor a good fifteen minutes later.
Everything was the same as last night. The puddles of blood were now half-dried and clotted, and the torn off hand and a few other body parts still lingered on the floor. I carefully sidestepped a few things on the floor that shouldn’t ever face the daylight and turned towards my hallway.
Everything was just as it was last night, except for one thing— one thing that threatened to buckle my knees and send me sobbing.
Right at the centre of the hallway, just outside my apartment door... was Erick.
He was lying in a puddle of his own blood…
A stake driven through his chest.