I woke up screaming.
The sound tore out of me before I even knew I was making it, my hands already clamped over my mouth, my body already moving. I didn't remember throwing off the covers, or swinging my legs over the side of the bed. I was just upright and running, my shoulder hitting the bathroom doorframe hard.
I found the light switch, slammed my palm against it and dropped to my knees just before losing everything I had eaten yesterday. My stomach convulsed in violent waves. Dinner came up first, then lunch, then nothing but bile that burned my throat and left me heaving violently. I gripped the porcelain edges so hard my knuckles went white. Between heaves, I heard myself making sounds I couldn't recognize. Whimpers. Choked breaths.
When there was nothing left, I fell back against the wall with my legs splayed across the cold tile. My chest was heaving. My heart kept pounding so hard I could feel it in my temples.
Just a dream. It was just a bad dream.
But I knew dreams didn't feel like that. I could still feel the snow under my knees. The cold seeping through my clothes. The weight of something horrible pressing down on me from all sides. I could still smell the blood, thick and black and wrong. I could
still hear the screams, reverberating in my ears.
And the pain. God, the pain. My hand shot up to my neck searching for a wound. There was no blood or even a scar. But the memory of teeth sinking into my flesh was still hot and sharp, as if it had happened seconds ago.
I sat there for a long moment, my back against the wall, my hand still pressed to my neck, trying to slow my breathing. It didn't work. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the
clearing again. The snow stained black. The dog lying still. The figure standing over him with eyes that swallowed light.
Then I remembered the boy. I had seen myself from outside myself. I watched myself sleep while something else watched me back. The image was so clear and so wrong that my stomach lurched again.
I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed the heels of my palms against them until I saw stars. I didn't want to see anything else. I didn't want to feel anything else. I just wanted to wake up from whatever nightmare I was still trapped in.
But I was already awake. I knew that much at least. The cold tiles under my legs was real. The taste of bile in my mouth was real. The darkness pressing against the bathroom walls was real.
I blinked and looked up at the ceiling. The bulb was dark even though I had turned the light on. I remembered my palm hitting the switch, but the bathroom was still dark, and the switch was still in the on position.
I stared at it for a moment, waiting for my brain to catch up. Then I shook my head and pushed myself to my feet. My legs were still shaky, but I forced myself to stand. I grabbed
the edge of the sink and looked at my reflection in the dark mirror. I could still see myself well enough. Darkness was never a problem for me. I could see the hollows under my eyes, the paleness of my skin, the way my hands trembled against the sink. I
hadn't been this shaken since I was a kid.
I turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on my face. Once. Twice. Three times. The shock of it helped a little. I ran my wet hands through my hair and stood there dripping, staring at my own reflection, still waiting for my heartbeat to slow. It didn't
slow down much, but for now it was enough.
I stepped out of the bathroom and stopped. The orb on my desk was pulsing brighter than before. Not dramatically brighter, but enough that the light it cast was the only illumination in the entire room.
I walked over to it and picked it up. The surface was warm, almost hot even, and the pulse seemed to match the rhythm of my own heart. I stared at it, turning it over in my hands, wondering what could be happening to it now of all times. The thing had been
sitting silently on my desk for weeks . Now it was glowing out of nowhere.
I didn't have time or energy for this. I dropped it back onto the desk and turned my attention to the light switch by the door. I flipped it. Nothing. I flipped it again. Still
nothing. I sighed in frustration as I walked over to my window and looked out. The street lights were off, and the next dorm facing my window had no lights on as well.
It was probably a power outage. Power outages happened once in a while. We got our electricity from underground cables connected to the regional grid, so when a storm rolled through or a transformer blew up down the line, we sometimes had no electricity for a few hours. It wasn't common, but it wasn't really that rare either.
The thing was, we always got warnings. Before maintenance was due we usually got notices a couple days in advance. Even when the school did its own work on the campus power lines, someone told us. A flyer in the cafeteria, an announcement during assembly. There was always something. Getting a power outage out of the blue had never happened before.
I stood there in the dark, staring at the dead light switch, waiting for an explanation that didn't come. I checked my phone. 2:03 AM.
Just great. The middle of the night. I needed air. I needed to move. I needed to hear a voice that wasn't my own. There was no way I was going back to sleep. Not with those images still burning behind my eyes. Not with the cold still clinging to my skin. Just the thought of it made me shiver.
I put on a shirt and stepped into the hallway. The corridor was completely dark. Nobody else was shuffling outside. Just shadows, silence and the sound of my footsteps echoing off the floor as I walked.
I stopped in front of Hector's door. We weren't really that close, not like Scott and I, but he was still a great friend and a heck of a neighbor. If there was anyone I could rant
to at 2 in the morning, it was Hector.
I knocked. Soft at first, then harder. "Hector. Hey. You awake?" No answer.
I put my ear against the door and listened. Nothing. That was strange. Hector rarely slept without snoring. I had complained about it to Scott at least a dozen times. The walls were thin, so I knew his rhythms by now.
I tried the handle. The door swung open. That was strange too. Everyone locked their doors at night. But maybe he had been too tired to bother.
"Hector?" I stepped inside. "Sorry to wake you dude, but something weird is going on and I—"
I stopped.
He was on his bed, lying on his back with the covers pulled up to his chin. His face was relaxed, eyes closed, mouth slightly open.
For a moment, I thought he was just sleeping deeply, dreaming about mozzarella sticks and meme coins (two of his weirdest obsessions).
I felt bad about waking him up. I really did. But I couldn't go back to sleep. I needed someone to talk to. Scott was probably at the library with the others for the anniversary
thing, and I didn't want to walk all the way over there in the dark. Hector was right here. Hector would understand.
I reached out and touched his shoulder. "Hey, man. Wake up."
The moment my fingers made contact, I yanked my hand back like I had been burned. He was ice cold.
My heart started pounding again. I reached out a second time, slower, and touched his arm. His skin was stiff and unyielding. I pressed my fingers against his wrist, searching for a pulse. Nothing. I pressed harder, digging into his flesh, searching for a sign of anything. Still nothing.
I leaned over and put my ear against his chest. The fabric of his shirt was cold against my cheek. I held my breath and listened. No heartbeat. No breath. No sound at all.
I stumbled backward and fell against the wall. My legs gave out and I slid down to the floor, my eyes fixed on Hector's peaceful, terrible face. The realization crept over me slowly.
Hector was dead.
My hands flew to my mouth in panic. My stomach churned and I swallowed hard, forcing down the bile that rose in my throat. Not again. I couldn't throw up again.
I sat there, staring at my neighbor's body, trying to make sense of something that made no sense. He had been fine a couple hours ago. He had complained about the cafeteria meatloaf in the morning. He had yawned and said "one of those days." He had been alive.
What the hell is going on today?
I pushed myself up. My legs were shaking badly. I needed to find someone. Ms. Flores. Mr. Sebastian. Anyone. I stumbled out of Hector's room and into the hallway. My mouth opened to scream, to call for help, to do something.
That was when I heard the boots. Footsteps echoing from somewhere below. Heavy, slow and deliberate. The sound of someone walking across the lobby floor.
I froze.
The boots kept coming. Steady. Unhurried. Whoever it was, they weren't running. They weren't hiding. They were just walking, like they had all the time in the world.
I clamped my hands over my mouth and pressed myself flat against the wall.
For a moment, there was nothing but silence. The kind of silence that presses against your eardrums and makes you wonder if you've gone deaf. I didn't breathe. I
stood there frozen, waiting for footsteps to start climbing the stairs.
Then I heard it. Low and gruff, like a man who had been busy all day and was
running out of patience. "Damn it Walter, you
didn't tell us there'd be this much interference. I can barely track anything like this."
A pause. Then a second voice crackled through what sounded like a small speaker or a communication device. "Stop complaining like it's my fault. Nobody expected they'd have so many scramblers."
I crept slowly toward the railing in the hallway. My legs felt like they didn't belong to me. Every step was too loud, too slow, too desperate. I kept my back against the wall and inched forward until I could just barely see over the edge.
Below me, standing in the center of the lobby, was a man dressed in armour. It wasn't like the heavy, clanking plate mail you'd see in history books. This was much lighter, but sturdier, fitted close to his body like a second skin. Dark metal with sharp
angles covering him from his neck down to his boots, leaving no flesh exposed except for his hands and his face. A purple cape hung from his shoulders, sweeping down to his calves, and in his right hand he held a thin staff lazily, it's surface gleaming gold even in the darkness.
I had seen enough textbook drawings and old paintings in the library to know exactly what he was. A wizard.
My mind stopped working. Then it began racing too fast to follow.
What the hell is a wizard doing here? How was a wizard even here?
They were supposed to be gone. Sealed away in some pocket dimension that Dracula had created before he died. They weren't supposed to walk the earth anymore. But there was one standing right now in the lobby, making his way towards the stairs.
I pulled back from the railing and crept toward my room. Each step felt like it took a year. I pushed the door open, slipped inside, and closed it behind me as quietly as I could.
I immediately moved toward the window. I needed to get out now. I could climb down the wall, drop to the ground, and find Ms. Flores. Anybody. They would know what to do.
I grabbed the frame and tried to push it open. Nothing. I tried again, throwing my weight against it. The window didn't budge. Not a centimeter. Not even a millimeter. I knew it wasn't stuck or locked. I could feel it in the way the frame resisted, the way the
glass seemed to hum with something I couldn't see. Magic.
I stepped back, my chest heaving. My eyes darted around the room, searching for an escape that didn't exist. I could try the roof. The door to the roof was on the floor above me. It creaked badly, but maybe if I moved slowly enough—
No. It would creak. It always did. Anyone standing in the lobby would hear it.
I pressed my palms against my eyes and tried to think. There had to be a way out. There had to be something I was missing.
Track. The wizard had said he was tracking something. The words echoed in my head. He wasn't here by accident. He was looking for something. And whatever that something was, it was in this building. In one of these rooms.
My blood ran cold. My eyes fell on the desk where I'd dropped the orb. The orb that was still pulsing. Still glowing and seeping light softly through the room.
That's what he's here for.
I cursed under my breath, a string of words I hadn't used since the orphanage. I grabbed the orb and shoved it deep into my pocket where the light couldn't escape. Then I stood there, breathing hard, trying to figure out what to do next.
My room was on the third floor. The highest floor in the building. The only ways down were the stairs or over the railing. The stairs led straight to the lobby, where the wizard was standing. The railing would drop me three floors down, but the sound of my
landing would echo through the whole building. He would hear me as soon as I
hit the ground.
I could throw the orb. Toss it and let it land somewhere far away, let the wizard follow it and leave me alone. But Ms. Flores' warning came back to me.
Don't let it out of your sight. Ever.
Did she know this would happen? Had she known someone would come looking for it?
I cursed again, running my hands through my hair. There was nothing else to do. I couldn't run. I couldn't hide. I had to face him.
But I had one advantage. He didn't know I was here. At least not yet. He was climbing the stairs now, still talking to whoever Walter was. That gave me the element of surprise.
I crept out of my room and pressed myself against the wall next to the staircase. My heart was pounding so loud I was sure he could hear it. My hands were shaking. My legs were shaking. Every part of me was screaming to run.
The footsteps grew louder as he climbed the stairs, slow and deliberate, his boots echoing off the stone with every step. First floor. Second floor. He was getting closer.
"Stop wasting my time and confirm the exact location," the wizard called out. His voice was closer now. Too close. "This shit is getting worse."
The static voice crackled through the communication device. A pause. Then: "It should be about three feet to your left. Maybe four. The signal keeps shifting."
I didn't wait for him to reach the top.
I exploded out from behind the wall and kicked him square in the chest before he could even raise his staff. His eyes went wide as he tumbled backward down the stairs, his armour clanging against the stone, a grunt escaping his throat as he tried to grab onto the railing and missed.
I couldn't give him time to recover. I launched myself down the stairs after him, tackling him mid-roll, and we both went tumbling. The world spun. Stone scraped against my back. His elbow caught me in the ribs. My knee caught him in the thigh. We spilled onto the walkway of the second floor in a heap of limbs and armour and desperate
gasps for air.
I scrambled to my feet first. My body was faster than his. I had the advantage and I needed to use it before he could get his bearings.
I threw a straight hook at his jaw, putting all my weight behind it. He was still on one knee, reaching for his staff. The punch should have connected. It should have laid
him out cold, but he dodged. It wasn't a fast dodge, but he shifted his head at the last possible second, just enough that my knuckles grazed his ear instead of crushing his skull. He rolled backward and came up on his feet, his staff already in his hand, his eyes locked on mine.
I pressed forward anyway. I had speed. I had reach. I just needed one clean hit.
As I dashed towards him, he raised a finger and pointed at me. My instincts kicked in immediately. I didn't need to think. I just moved, throwing myself sideways, my shoulder hitting the railing as a thin blast of lightning shot past my face. The air crackled.
My hair stood on end. The bolt hit the wall behind me and left a black scorch mark.
I backed up fast. Poured distance between us until I was at the far end of the walkway and he was at the other.
He held his staff now. Gold-plated. Gleaming. The tip of it beginning to smoke. He looked at me with genuine surprise. Not fear or anger. It was more like he had found something completely unexpected.
"Well, well," he said. "I'm shocked to find one of you still alive."
My hands curled into fists as I screamed. "What do you mean by that?! Are you the one who hurt Hector?!"
He laughed. A short, sharp sound that echoed off the walls. "Who the fuck is that?" Then his expression cleared as he watched me. "Oh. You mean one of your poor friends." He shrugged. "Everyone in this college is dead. Every single living thing caught in the spell." He smiled. "Although I'm surprised you're not."
The words hit me like a physical blow. Everyone was dead. Scott. Zoë. Henry. Laura. Ms. Flores. All of them.
My brain didn't have time to process it. He raised his staff and a massive blast of lightning came roaring down the walkway toward me. Too big to dodge and too fast to outrun. The narrow hallway gave me nowhere to go.
I made a split-second decision, kicking the door next to me open and throwing myself inside. The lightning hit the
doorframe behind me. Wood splintered. The air turned hot. I rolled across the floor and came up on my knees, my ears ringing, my heart pounding, my eyes searching for the next attack.
It didn't come. At least not immediately.
The wizard was still in the hallway. He was walking slowly. He wasn't in a hurry. He knew I had nowhere to run.
My eyes adjusted instantly. The room belonged to Isaac. I recognized it from the posters on the wall, the messy desk and the pile of shoes by the door. I had been in here
a dozen times, playing cards, studying for exams or just hanging out while Isaac complained about his assignments.
Isaac was on his bed. His body was still, and I knew before I even looked at his chest that it wasn't moving. He was dead. Just like Hector. Just like everyone else.
Tears stung the corners of my eyes. I wanted to scream. I wanted to punch the wall. I wanted to fall to my knees and let the grief swallow me whole. But there was no time. The wizard was still in the hallway.
I forced myself to move. My eyes scanned the room, looking for anything I could use. Isaac's desk was cluttered with textbooks and loose papers and a heavy metal lamp. I grabbed the lamp and yanked the cord out of the wall. Then I pressed myself against the wall next to the door and waited.
The wizard's footsteps grew louder. Closer. He was walking right past the doors, taking his time. I could hear the soft hum of his staff, the crackle of energy building at its tip.
Part of the door was ruined. The lightning blast had splintered the wood, leaving a gap big enough to see through. But I knew he wouldn't just open the door. That would give me a chance to attack and he was too smart for that. He was going to hit me through the wall.
I listened to his footsteps. Measured the distance mentally. He was getting closer. Two doors away. One. He slowed down as he approached the gap in the wood, trying to peer through. I heard the staff charge. A low whine that built to a sharp crackle. He was going to fire any second.
I threw the door wide open. The edge of it caught him in the side of the head. He staggered, his aim thrown off, the lightning
blast shooting wild into the ceiling. Plaster and dust rained down around us.
I closed the gap before he could recover. I crashed the lap against his chest, and through my right fist straight at his abdomen. I put everything I had into that punch. Every ounce of rage and grief and desperation. He brought his staff up at the last second, blocking the hit.
I didn't change my trajectory. I thought I could smash right through the staff. I thought my vampire strength would be enough. But the moment my knuckles
touched the metal, my entire right arm went numb.
Electricity shot up through my fingers, through my wrist, through my elbow and shoulder. The pain was blinding. White hot. I felt my muscles lock up, felt my fingers curl into claws that wouldn't open as my arm hung dead at my side.
I yelled in agony. I couldn't help it, but I didn't stop. I couldn't give him space. Not here. Not on this narrow walkway. If he got distance, he would blast me again. And if he
blasted me again, I might not get back up.
I followed him closely. Too close for him to use his staff properly. My left arm was still
good. I took a wild swing at his head. He dodged easily, his eyes tracking the
movement, already preparing a counter. I swung again. He ducked. Then I feinted,
pretending to go high, aiming for his face, making him raise his guard. Instead, I dropped my shoulder and drove straight into his abdomen.
My left arm wrapped around his waist. My legs pushed off the ground. The railing hit us both in the ribs and then we were tilting, tipping, falling over the edge.
The world spun. Wind rushed past my ears. The wizard's staff clattered against the railing and fell somewhere below us. His hands grabbed at my shirt, at my hair, at anything he could hold onto. I held on with all my strength as we crashed onto the lobby
floor two stories below.
We hit the ground hard, cracking the floor. The impact rattled through my bones. My shoulder took most of it, then my hip, then my back. I rolled across the cold stone floor and came to a stop against the base of the reception desk.
Everything hurt like hell. My right arm was still dead weight at my side. My ribs felt like they were on fire. But I was alive. I was still alive.
I pushed myself up with my left hand and immediately felt something wrong. My thumb was bent at an angle it shouldn't have been, the joint swollen and out of place. I grabbed it, took a deep breath, and wrenched it back into position.
The crack was loud in the silence. Pain shot up my arm as I bit down on my lip hard enough to taste blood. I flexed my fingers. They worked. That was good enough.
Across the floor, the wizard was struggling to his feet. His armour was dented. His purple cape was torn. Blood dripped from a cut on his forehead, black in the dim light. But he was smiling. He picked up his staff
from where it had fallen and leaned on it like a walking stick. "Haven't had this much fun like this in a long time." His voice was almost cheerful. "Don't disappoint me now kid. Keep up."
I felt the charge in the air before I saw it.
I grabbed the nearest thing I could find—a small wooden table from the waiting area, the kind that held magazines no one ever bothered to read—and hurled it at him with everything I had.
The table shattered mid-air, lightning tearing through it, splintering the wood into a cloud of dust and debris.
But I was already moving. I came in low, using the dust as cover. My left palm connected with his cheek before he could lower his staff. His head snapped to the side and he staggered, but I didn't let up. I drove my elbow into his ribs, felt something give beneath the armour, and followed with a knee to his thigh.
He tried to bring his staff up to block. I saw it coming and shifted my weight, slipping past the metal and landing a sharp jab to his throat. He choked and stumbled back. I
caught him with a hook to the jaw. Then another. Then an uppercut that lifted his chin and sent him reeling.
He yelled in frustration. He raised his staff above his head, not pointing it at me, just
holding it up like a flag. I didn't wait to find
out why, so I shifted my weight and jumped just as the staff slammed into the
ground.
Electricity exploded outward in every direction, sweeping across the lobby floor. I was already in the air when it hit, my legs tucked, my body twisting. The lightning passed beneath me, close enough that I could feel the heat of it on my heels.
I started to fall back down. He raised his staff and fired. The blast came at me
mid-air. But I twisted somehow, my body bending unnaturally, and my feet touched
the ground for just a fraction of a second before I was moving again. I couldn't stop. If I stopped, I would die.
I closed the distance and swung at his head. He raised his staff. I dodged, expecting another blast, already shifting my weight to avoid it. Nothing happened. The
wizard grinned. He had faked the charge, made me think I had time and made me
commit to a dodge that wasn't necessary. I was wide open.
He fired point blank.
I took the hit and rolled with it. The lightning scorched my chest and sent me stumbling backward into the dark. I didn't stop moving. My feet carried me deeper into the shadows at the edge of the lobby, away from the wizard's line of sight.
The pain was still there, pulsing through my chest, hot, sharp and insistent. But something else was happening too. I could feel my body already working to fix itself. The numbness in my right arm was fading. The burns on my chest were cooling. My healing felt faster than it should have been, like my blood was running hotter than usual.
But I knew I couldn't take another direct hit. One more blast like that and I wouldn't get back up.
I pressed myself against the wall and forced my breathing to slow. The lobby was mostly dark. The emergency lights were dead like everything else, and the only illumination came from the faint moonlight filtering through the high windows. Shadows pooled in every corner. Long stretches of darkness between me and him.
The wizard walked toward me, grinning. "That was impressive, let's see what else can you do."
I took a deep breath and held it. Then I pushed off the wall and drove my legs as hard as I could. The roundhouse caught
him across the side of the head before he could raise his staff. My shin connected with his temple and his whole body jerked sideways. He didn't fall, but he staggered, his feet scraping against the floor as he tried to regain his balance.
I followed up with my left leg, driving a kick at his ribs. He brought his staff up just in time and my shin hit the metal, turning the world white again. The pain was instant. My entire left side went numb. My balance crumbled and I was falling before I knew what was happening.
The wizard didn't waste the opening. He swung his staff like a club and caught me square in the face.
It wasn't the impact that hurt. It was the electricity. The metal pressed against my cheek and I felt every nerve in my face light up at once. My vision flickered. My teeth
buzzed. My brain felt like it was shaking inside my skull, rattling against the bone like a marble in a jar. I tasted copper and something else, something burnt.
I hit the ground on one knee. My hands slapped against the floor, trying to push myself up, but my arms wouldn't cooperate. They were shaking too hard. My whole body was shaking. I tried to shift back, to put distance between us, to buy myself even a second to recover, but he raised his staff and fired. The blast caught me in the shoulder and sent me skidding across the floor. I came to a stop near the base of the stairs.
I knew I needed to move. But my
body wouldn't respond. My arms were dead weight. My legs were made of lead. All at once I felt tired and hopeless as reality dawned on me: I couldn't win against him.
"You know it's a pity," the wizard said. "I really hoped you would last longer."
He stopped in front of me, close enough I could see his boots. Scuffed leather. Dark stains that might have been blood.
I tried to push myself up. My arms shook. I made it an inch off the ground before my elbows buckled and I fell back down.
He reached down and grabbed a handful of my hair. He lifted my head until I was looking up at him. His face was pale in the moonlight, his eyes cold and grey, his smile thin and cruel.
"Do you know how the electrical signals in your brain work?" His voice was soft, like he was explaining something to a child.
He let go of my hair. My head dropped back to the floor. The stone was cold against my cheek. He kicked my face. Not hard enough to break anything, just hard enough to turn my head to the other side. Then he started walking around me, his voice echoing off the walls.
"I could just kill you. That would be easy, obviously." He stopped walking. I could feel him standing behind me, looking down at my broken body. "But you see, I'm something of an experimentalist. Nothing better than testing different ways of torture. Like messing with the electrical signals in your brain. Nothing serious, of course, just enough to make you forget how to move. Or
maybe how to speak. What do you think?" He laughed. A low, quiet sound that made my skin crawl.
"You would still be alive, technically. But you wouldn't be able to do anything. Not even blink. Just a prisoner in your own body, watching the world move around you." He
crouched down beside me. I could feel his breath on my neck. "I'll be honest, I was surprised to see one of you still alive, but now that I think of it, this is actually fantastic. I can't remember the last time I had the chance to try out experiments on a vampire."
I tried to move. My fingers twitched. My toes curled. But my body wouldn't listen.
The wizard stood up and raised his staff, pointing it at my head. The tip glowed faintly, humming with that same crackling energy that had been tearing me apart for what felt like hours. I couldn't move. Couldn't speak. I could only close my eyes.
This was it.
I was going to die here. On the cold floor of the lobby. Surrounded by the bodies of people I had laughed with, studied with, complained about cafeteria food with. Everyone else scattered across the campus, still and cold and never waking up. My friends. Scott and Zoë and Henry and Laura and Marcus and Mackenzie. They were gone too. I didn't know it for certain, not yet, but I felt it in my chest. The same emptiness
that had been there since I woke up screaming. The same silence that had
followed me through the dark hallways.
They were all dead. And I was about to join them. My life flashed through my mind. Not in an orderly way, or like a story being told from beginning to end. Just fragments. The orphanage. Sister Rachael's apple pie. The day I stopped that robber and changed everything. The long drive to Crescent College with Agents Krischov and DeMontera. The first time I met Scott. The first time I saw Zoë. All of it was gone. All
of it was ending.
The orb was still in my pocket, pressed against my hip. Once I was dead, or close enough that it didn't matter, he'd just rip it from me and walk away. This stupid, glowing, cursed orb was the reason for all of this. They hadn't come for the college. They hadn't come for the students or the teachers or anything else. They came for that orb. And because of it, everyone was dead. I didn't want this orb. I never asked for it. Ms. Flores shoved it into my hands with a warning I didn't understand, and now everyone I cared about was gone.
Just like before, I didn't ask to be a vampire. I didn't ask to be ripped from the orphanage, from Sister Rachael, from the only family I had ever known. But someone decided for me. Someone dropped a burden on my shoulders and told me to carry it. And just like before, I had lost everyone. The nuns. The kids at the Home. The life I was
supposed to have. All of it gone. Now I was about to lose the rest. The sadness sat in my
chest heavy and cold.
This isn't fair
Something inside me cracked. The sadness didn't go away. It just… changed. Twisted. Turned inward and caught fire. I didn't want this. I didn't ask for any of it. The wizards did this. They took everything from me. Every single person I loved. I couldn't die now. I was going to make them pay. I had to make them pay.
Feed
The voice floated through my mind. I couldn't tell if it was mine or the wizard's. It didn't sound like either. It sounded older. And it was very hungry.
Feed
The anger spread through my veins. I thought about Hector's cold skin. Isaac's still chest. The empty hallways and the silent dorms and the bodies lying in beds all over campus. I thought about the wizard standing over me, smiling, ready to fry my brain like I
was some plaything. The only thing I cared
about anymore was destroying it all.
I screamed. The sound came out of my throat, raw and animal, nothing like a battle cry. My body convulsed on the floor. My back arched. I felt foam bubbling at the corners of my mouth, felt my teeth grinding together, felt something inside me crack open and spill out.
The wizard stumbled back, alarmed. "What the—"
I saw him fire his staff. Lightning struck my head. I felt it hit, felt the electricity crawl
across my scalp and down my neck, but the pain never came. It was just sensation. Just noise. My body no longer cared about pain anymore.
My vision went red as my injuries healed. I felt them knitting together, felt the burns on my chest close up, felt the numbness in my arms and legs fade. My muscles coiled with
strength I didn't know I had. My heart pounded with blood that felt too hot, too fast, too alive. I turned my head and stared at the wizard.
His eyes went wide. His hand tightened on his staff. He fired again, point blank, right between my eyes. The lightning crackled across my face and I didn't even blink.
I stood up. My body moved without my
permission. One moment I was on the floor. The next I was on my feet, towering over him, my hand knocking the staff out of his grip before he could fire again. The metal clattered across the floor and spun to a stop somewhere in the darkness.
The wizard backed up. His face was pale, paler than it had been, as he watched me in pure horror.
"Would you look at that. Now you're beginning to look like the monster you really are," he spat, backing up.
I couldn't hear him. My mind was torn between two things. Anger and hunger. Both of them burned my insides. Both of them demanded to be fed. I took a step toward him. Then another.
The wizard backed up faster. He scrambled backward, his boots slipping on the stone floor, his hands reaching for something, anything. His staff. It had fallen a few feet away, the gold-plated metal gleaming faintly in the dark. He grabbed it and swung it at me with full force. It was a wild, desperate and honestly pathetic attempt. The final act of a man who had already lost.
I didn't dodge or block. I just opened my mouth and caught the staff between my teeth. The metal cracked but I clenched my jaw, the taste of gold and ozone flooding my tongue. I bit down harder and the staff snapped in half. The pieces clattered to the floor, the light in them dying instantly.
The wizard stared at his broken weapon, horrified. His mouth hung open just as my hand shot out and caught him by the throat. His armour meant nothing. His magic meant nothing. He weighed nothing. I shoved him backward and he flew through the air like a ragdoll, his body crashing through the wall behind him. Stone crumbled and dust exploded outward. The sound of his impact echoed through the lobby and then through the reading room beyond.
I stepped through the hole after him, my feet crunching on broken masonry. The reading room was also lit only by the moonlight filtering through the windows. Bookshelves loomed on either side of the room. A few tables and chairs were scattered around. And there, crumpled against a fallen bookcase, was the wizard.
He tried to stand. His body was shaking badly and his arm was bent at an angle that looked wrong. Blood dripped all over his face, and his breath came in ragged, wet
gasps.
He swung at me as I approached
him. His fist was slow. Pathetic. I caught his hand in mine and felt the bones shift under his skin. I wrenched it sideways, then backward in a direction it wasn't meant to go. The sound of the joint tearing apart was loud in the quiet room. The wizard's face went white. His mouth opened, then he doubled over and vomited onto the floor.
I didn't let go. I pulled him upright and kicked his leg. His kneecap buckled inward. The bone snapped out of its socket with a wet pop and he screamed—a high, ragged sound that bounced off the walls and filled the room with his agony. He fell to his knees, his hands clutching at his leg, his face twisted and red.
"Please," he gasped. "Please, stop. You'll never see me again, I promise. Just don't kill
me. I..I have a family."
Tears streamed down his face. His voice cracked as he begged. The wizard who had killed everyone I Ioved was on his knees, crying, pleading for mercy. The sight only disgusted me, enraging me further. My eyes had found his neck. The skin there was pale.
Sweaty. A vein pulsed beneath the surface, thick and dark. The sound of it filled my ears. The rhythm of his heartbeat. The rush of blood through his arteries.
"You're right," I said, coldly. "I won't see you again."
Feed
The voice was mine, or not mine. It didn't matter.
"Pl—"
My body moved instantly. I grabbed his head, tilted it to the side, and sank my teeth into his throat. The taste hit me like a wave. Hot. Rich. Metallic and sweet at the same time. I had tasted my own blood before out of curiosity. But this was different. This was someone else's. This was fear and adrenaline and life itself pouring into my mouth.
I bit down harder, sinking my fangs deeper. The wizard cried out, a weak, strangled sound that faded quickly. His hands pushed at my chest, but I barely felt them. I was hungry. I sucked ravenously.
Desperately. The blood filled my throat and I swallowed and swallowed and swallowed. The wizard's cries grew softer. His hands stopped pushing. His body went slack in my grip.
When there was nothing left, I let him fall. His body hit the floor with a dull thud, his eyes still wide open, his mouth still frozen in a scream that would never come out. I stood there, breathing hard, my lips wet, my chin wet, my hands wet. I licked my fingers clean without thinking. The taste of him lingered on my tongue.
The anger and the hunger began to fade. The fire in my veins cooled and left me empty. Hollow. Shaking.
I fell to my knees. My chest heaved, my lungs burned. The surge of power that had carried me through the fight was gone, leaving me gasping for air. I could barely even keep my eyes open.
The wizard's body lay in front of me. Dead. I killed him. I had drained him dry. I had done the forbidden act, the one I was warned about the day I found out what I was. And I couldn't bring myself to care.
The darkness crept in at the edges of my vision. I fought it for a moment, then let it take me. The last thing I saw was his face. His open eyes staring at nothing. His lips parted like he had been about to say something important.
Now you're beginning to look like the monster you really are.