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Smiling gratefully, I collapse onto the seat. I usually help out where I can, but Kayleigh loves to be the one in charge. She loves to cook, clean, and have everything in order, and if things aren’t done to her specific standards, you’d be best to leave the house for the day and stay out of her way.
Withdrawing my phone from my pocket, I start googling.
‘Whatcha doing?’ Kayleigh asks, and my mouth begins to water at the smell of the food wafting toward me.
‘I’m trying to find info on Eli,’ I say.
‘Who?’ she asks, looking puzzled, although I’ve explained who he is to her before.
Kayleigh is super attentive when she is interested in something but is easy to forget details about anything she doesn’t care much about. I know she means well, but sometimes it’s easy to think that she doesn’t care for me as much as I care for her. But then she’ll do something thoughtful like buy me a book she thinks I’ll love, or bake my favourite brownies, which makes me question my thoughts.
Eli – a classmate of mine – recently went missing, and I can’t find any information about it. His socials are completely silent, he hasn’t been to class, and I never see him around town anymore. I became aware of his disappearance because we were in a group project together, and he stopped responding to any of our messages.
It’s as if he just … vanished. No one seems to be doing anything about it, but that’s the way of this town. People go missing, and no one talks about it. I wouldn’t be surprised if the vampires had something to do with it. There seem to be more and more of them popping up around town, and of course, the death toll continues to rise.
Anger boils in my veins at the thought. It makes me sick that they walk around town without a care in the world. I don’t understand how they can live with themselves, murdering and feeding on innocent people. It disgusts me.
After a few minutes of scrolling and finding nothing, I toss my phone onto the bench to watch Kayleigh load up my plate. My stomach rumbles, and she side-eyes me. She slides the plate over and, I reach for it.
‘You’re my favourite sister.’
‘I’m your only sister,’ she points out.
‘Still, you’re my favourite.’
‘Thanks, I guess.’ She laughs.
Kayleigh and I look up as my adoptive father, Terrance, enters the room, removing his hat. Mud is splattered up his jeans as if he has already been out and about this morning, and the sleeves of his shirt are rolled to his elbows.
He is one of the leaders of the Morvane Coven. The coven believes that vampires are a blight on the balance of life and death. Vampires and witches have been at war with each other for decades. Their war is one of extermination, but recently, I have been hearing snippets of conversations and whispers of things that’ve left me with more questions than answers. The witches want to know how vampires work in order to destroy them more effectively, and if they can adopt vampiric traits for their own magical purposes? Even better.
I’m not a witch. I don’t have magic in my blood, no fire in my veins, no substantial gift, only the weight of the coven’s name and legacy pressing down on me every time someone looks at me as though I should be more. More what, exactly? I don’t know. More useful, resourceful, ruthless, perhaps. More like them.
According to the stories I was raised on, vampires are wrong and unnatural. Souls that slipped the web of fate and tore holes in the world. Velistra, the leader of the coven, says they’re parasites who feed off life, memory, and fear. She says they don’t feel the way we do. They mimic it, like a trick of the light, to weaken and capture prey.
‘Never trust a vampire,’ she told me when I was younger and new to this world I was brought into. ‘They’ll smile with the same mouth they use to rip your throat out.’
Her words have stayed with me. I believe her. Yet sometimes I wonder if they hate them so much because they’re afraid of them and the power they hold. There’s a kind of obsession under the surface when witches talk about vampires. Like they want to understand them so badly, just so they can break them apart. Their entire world revolves around protecting the innocent and terminating vampires from existence.
Terrance’s dark hair is greying in some areas, and when he lifts his gaze to meet mine, the crow’s feet wrinkles cornering his eyes deepen.
‘G’morning,’ he says.
‘Morning!’ Kayleigh chirps, sliding the last bit of food onto his plate before she turns, handing it to him.
‘Morning.’ I smile.
‘How are my girls?’ he asks, pulling up the seat beside me and dropping into it.
‘Tired,’ I say, at the same time as Kayleigh squeaks out, ‘Great!’
Terrance pivots to face me. ‘What are you up to today? Are you training this morning?’
I nod. ‘That’s the plan.’
‘Lotta disappearances happening around town,’ he comments, a frown marring his mouth. ‘I want you to double up on your training for the next few weeks.’
Nodding, I chew, agreeing with him. With the increase in disappearances, I need to be ready for an attack at any time. I finish eating quickly and stomp into my boots. The air is crisp and stings my cheeks as I make my way out to the field.
