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Two hours later, everything I own is packed away in a small suitcase I’ve been gifted. Clio’s going away present to me. There’s a twinkle in her eye as she pulls a brush through my long, dark locks, as if she knows something I don’t.
Maybe she does.
“I hear they like to share,” she whispers, even though there’s no one else in the room. Share? The way her lips tip up suggestively tells me she isn’t talking about them sharing food. Is that the fate they’re sending me to? Am I to be their whore? I know my siblings never thought much of me, but I never thought their hatred ran this deep.
When I remain silent, she keeps running her mouth, purposely trying to get a rise out of me. It won’t work. Not tonight. Not because what she’s saying isn’t affecting me, but because the half of a Diazepam I swallowed is finally doing its job, making me a numb shell.
“Papa taught us all about their kind,” she rambles on, curling iron in her hand. She rolls it so tight that I can feel the heat pressing against my skin. Not close enough to burn, but enough to know that she’s the one holding the power in this moment. A subtle reminder of how easily she can hurt me. “They like to fight during sex. Apparently, blood tastes the most powerful when a woman is in the throes of pain, so they never make it good for the woman.” Another tightly curled piece of hair. More heat, this one closer. “I wonder how the blood of a killer tastes to them.”
And we circle back to this.
Always back to this.
When I continue to not respond, she huffs mildly, finishing my hair half-heartedly with the curling iron before throwing it down on the counter. Is that the only reason she came in here? To terrorize me?
“You know that isn’t my fault, right?” I remind her, my voice flat, eyes dull. “It could have just as easily been you.”
A sneer forms on her painted lips as I look at her through the mirror.
“But it wasn’t me,” she hisses. “Father wanted mother to abort you when the doctor told them about the complications she could have during pregnancy. But mother refused, telling him that everything would be all right. That you were to be born no matter what.” She snorts derisively. “She said you were special, but she lied. You are nothing special at all. Just a pathetic murdering bastard.”
“I lost her too, you know.”
“You didn’t even know her,” Clio roars, but she keeps her distance. Her narrow gaze burns into me. She can’t hurt me, and she knows it. I know it. Damaged goods won’t go over well with the monsters they’re selling me to. “Don’t you dare speak about her as if you knew her. You didn’t, and we never got to spend more time with her because of you. Remember that, Thalia. Remember what a killer you are.”
The killer you are.
Those words have been repeated for as long as I can remember. It’s the title they have branded me with. One I can never escape, because even though, on some level, I know I’m not directly responsible, if I hadn’t been born, she would never have died.
Why am I doing this again? I wonder idly whether, if I refuse to go with them, they will take it out on me or my brother. Would they kill him and leave? I highly doubt that. Honestly, they will most likely kill him and still take me. Their kind are savages. Leeches on society. Those who know of their existence believe that vampires were born of demonic breeding. That the devil himself came together with a human, feeding her his blood to create them.
But that’s all a myth. No one truly knows how vampires were created.
There are whole underground cults dedicated to them.
The problem is that they’re still considered legends of the world. Those who try to tell humanity of their existence are cast as loonies. Mentally deranged. They live among humans as if they belong. Few may stumble into the darkened world of the supernatural, but for most, like my father, their business depends on them. Our family has worked alongside vampires for hundreds of years.
My father always denied working with the Kings, though I never knew why.
“Let’s go,” my sister sighs impatiently.
Resisting the urge to shoot her a dirty look, I rise from my trance and look down at the sorry excuse for a dress my siblings chose. It’s demure, all right. I look like I stepped out of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The dress is made of white lace and sliver-thin white fabric. It has a high neckline and long sleeves, and the hem trails along the floor. The only thing is, it’s nearly see-through.
My only relief is that it hides the scars that crisscross along my back.
One for every year proceeding my mother’s death.
Every year it was the same. On the anniversary of her death, I would receive my punishment. I’d be whipped. Isolated. Starved.
On and on it went, progressively getting worse each year until his death.
Maybe this will be a chance for me to get away from the abuse that has littered my life since birth.
That thought comes to a screeching halt as I enter the foyer. The lump in my throat that has been forming since my brother delivered the news grows exponentially as I take in the men before me.
No, not men.
Monsters.
