Assassins

 

All night long, my mind was pregnant and swarming with a million different thoughts and questions, even though it seemed at first most of my long term queries had been somewhat answered already.

In the morning I called Tyler straight away, feeling sort of funny calling Mariellen.  They suggested we all go down to Eureka and just us ladies could have lunch together while the boys ventured around.

We chose to eat around noon-ish, at a quaint café called Hurricane Kate’s, and we sat on the outside patio while Owen, Isaac, Blaise, and Amery went across the street to a comic book convention going on at the small library in town.

After the waitress took our orders and delivered our drinks, I urgently dove into explaining the whole story to Mariellen and Tyler, of everything that happened the night before, and of everything I uncovered.  I even carefully brought the evidence, placing it all into a large manila envelope I found in the study room; the letter from Eloise to myself as well as all the letters from Josiah Palmer, including his obituary.

Mariellen and Tyler sat speechlessly, staring at the article and listening intently and waiting until I was done explaining to make any type of comment at all.

“I knew it,” Tyler muttered under her breath, a bizarre look of happy revelation on her face. “We all could have seen this coming.  Makes perfect sense when you step back and look at it.”

“I guess so…” Mariellen said in stunned, yet eager agreement. “No wonder he never goes away.  He can’t.  He’s somewhat bound to you, so to speak.”

“And you’re somewhat bound to him as well,” Tyler added in her girlish, raspy voice.

Starring at my lap and playing absentmindedly with my wooden beaded bracelet, I felt as if the walls to Hurricane Kate’s were going to crumble down around us on the patio.  I should have seen it coming.  I probably did, thinking back to the vision I had where Brady was standing outside of the cell structure I had been trapped in: I am a part of you.  We belong together forever and always.

“Great.” I said taking a sip of water to try to cool my nerves. “Another aspect of my life I have no control of, whatsoever.”

The waitress returned, bringing us our food and placing the meals promptly in the correct spot around the table, asked us if we needed anything else, and then went on her merry way.

“Well, I’m pretty much in the same boat as you, as far as this whole ‘fate’ situation goes,” Mariellen said after a moment, as she figured out the best way to pick up her messy chicken salad sandwich off her plate.

I paused, starring at her soft featured, gentle face; a distant pain was hovering in her deep blue eyes. “What do you mean?” I asked.

She gave up momentarily and set the sandwich back down in her plate. “This whole, you know, being queen thing,” She started, shaking her head quickly so that her thick white blonde curls bounced around her face. She shrugged her shoulders up in defeat. “I…I-I don’t want this.  Tyler, you know.  We talk about this every night.  And Sophia you must know as well, even if you haven’t seen it in a vision yourself.  I…I love Isaac.  God, you two have known all along.  I don’t know how I can ever be happy living a lie. I don’t think I can ever teach myself to love someone else.”   She laid her head in her hands for a second and then lifted herself, as if she were trying to shake off the tears.  Tyler reached out a tiny, yet toned arm and touched her shoulder comfortingly.

I smiled weakly across the table at Mariellen as she nibbled carelessly at her chicken salad sandwich.  The look in her eyes was anything but remorse�"she didn’t want Owen and she felt no shame.  We all knew the one she really wanted, it wasn’t a lie and she didn’t have to pretend anything otherwise.

“What about you Sophia?  Do you think you could ever love Brady?” Tyler probed.

            I didn’t flinch, or spit water out of my mouth, or even stare at Tyler like she was possibly insane.  Because she wasn’t.  And loving Brady wasn’t all that much of a stretch from what could be plausible.  Because if Eloise I had actually loved�" really, truly loved Brady’s ancestor once upon a time, it was quite possible that was the reasoning for why I was so often feeling…attached to Brady himself.  Because maybe that’s how it was supposed to be.  Maybe it was more than just being bound uncontrollably.

            Maybe I was supposed to love Brady, after all.

            Even though I was certain the man Eloise had loved treated her with much more respect from the get-go, and probably always worshiped the ground she walked on rather than try to make her jealous, like Brady had first done to me.

            But things don’t always go perfectly to plan, I had learned long, long ago.

            However, as I chewed on this question, one face and only one face sprang to mind.  And that was Owen’s.  No face could ever be as perfect or captivating to me as Owen’s was, I was sure of that.

            While Mariellen tried to teach herself to love Owen, I would be doing so quite easily from a far-off distance.

            Life wasn’t fair.

            Just then there was the sound of sirens in the distance, catching my alarm.  The sound was growing louder and more distinct, as though the ambulance were about to drive straight past where we sat.

            Everyone sitting outside at the little bistro stopped chatting and sat up eagerly in their chairs, straining to see where the source of the siren was coming from.  I strained my neck to see around the surf shop across the street, and noticed the ambulance coming down the road, wheeling onto the same street as the bistro, and heading past where we were sitting, straight for the library where Owen, Blaise, Isaac, and Amery were.

            Where Owen was.

            I shot up from my chair so fast I nearly knocked the lemonade pitcher over as I did so.  A strange feeling was brewing in my stomach, churning the Caesar salad in had been into up into tight little knots.  Another of my visions was trilling in my ears loudly…the wicked voice of the undead.

            When you least expect it…

            “Soph, what’s wrong?” Mariellen snapped quickly, grabbing her little Vera Bradley purse like she knew I was going to rush out of the bistro, and she would have to leave the money on the table.

            “Owen,” I breathed, as the ambulance flew into the municipal center’s parking lot, back doors flying open on the spot.  A curious crowd had already begun forming around the ambulance, and as I continued watching, I saw the paramedics carrying a fairly large body down the stone steps, strapped onto a white stretcher.

            Not even bothering to grab my black leather satchel purse, I knocked the chair back I had been sitting in and leapt over the lattice fencing which enclosed the little bistro, ignoring the desperate calls from Mariellen and Tyler for me to wait.

            My legs were pumping as fast as they could, and I tried my best to ignore the stinging blisters within my black low-cut converse.  Just a little further and I would be there…

            The huge crowd was before me now as I could make out Blaise, Isaac, and Amery standing on the top steps of the municipal center.  A sharp pang raced through my chest, down my esophagus and into my stomach.  I didn’t need to question where Owen was, I already knew.

            “Let me through,” I said loudly, as I ran past the outskirt of the crowd. “Let me through!” I shrieked at the top of my voice, forcing everyone out of my way as if I were a screeching banshee.

            I looked down upon the body lying on the stretcher before me, the paramedics rushing around it, attempting to perform CPR.

“He’s not going to make it�"too much blood loss.”

“He’s already dead, call the time.”

I looked at the face.

My blood froze over in my veins, and a sudden wooshing feeling shot through my stomach.  The paled face was Owen, a large amount of blood evacuating out his neck.

I instantly turned to the side and threw up on the concrete, retching everything that was inside of me onto the street for everyone to see.  When it was all out of me, my eyes started tearing from the forceful dry heaves my body was involuntarily making.

Owen was dead.  The bloodthieves had killed him.  In a library of all places.

A hand suddenly touched my back, and as I sputtered out another nasty phlegm ball, I turned to see Mariellen and Tyler starring confusedly at me.

“Sophia, what has gotten into you?” Mariellen asked, rubbing my back gently, and hoisting me to stand up right.

“He’s dead!” I shrieked, my hair getting tangled around my teary, vomit splattered face. “They killed him!  He’s dead!”

“Who is?” Tyler probed, starring at the paramedics closing the doors to the ambulance then back to me in extreme misunderstanding.  “Who just died?”

I couldn’t find the words to express what had happened, the only words that kept replaying through my mind were “When you least expect it…”

When I looked back towards the steps to see Isaac, Amery, and Blaise, I noticed he was standing there too, looking down upon the incident that just took place.  “Owen?” I gasped, looking up at his broad stance, as if nothing had just happened to him.  Was it a ghost?

“Owen?” Mariellen repeated incredulously. “You thought Owen just died?  Sophia, he’s standing right up there with the others, he’s fine!”

I stared up at Owen again, completely flawless�"besides the scar across his left eyebrow�"in his black jeans and olive colored t-shirt, with his black zip up jacket on and hood up.

“But I…I just saw…”  The memory was hard to shake, and I winced each time the vision came flooding back to focus.  Tyler and Mariellen exchanged helpless, confused glances.

“I just saw him dead, he was the one laying on that stretcher!” I whimpered, trying to be quieter this time, tugging urgently on Mariellen’s tweed blazer.  People were watching, but I was too stunned to be embarrassed.

“Come on, honey,” Mariellen said after a moment’s pause.  “Let’s get you back to the house and clean you up.”  Together, she and Tyler helped hoist me to my feet, helping me towards the direction of the parking meter where Mariellen had parked the red Jeep Cherokee.

What on Earth had just happened to me?  Was it another vision, like the time I saw the girl being murdered in the bathroom at school?  Obviously, the account could not have been real.  Owen was alive.  Well, at least for now.

“Um, guys?” I said, as they helped hoist me into the backseat of the Jeep. “Can we please not mention any of this to the boys?  I haven’t been catching much sleep at night, you know.  It’s probably nothing.  Probably just a sleep deprived hallucination.”

Mariellen and Tyler exchanged another look of apprehension, and then closed the door without saying a word.

 

I straightened myself quickly while still seated in the red Jeep Cherokee, fixing my jean jacket that was askew and my hair that was all over the place from racing through the streets of downtown Eureka like a crazed lunatic, which I was starting to believe I just may be.  Mariellen even had some paper towels in the glove box I used to wipe my face, and she handed me a piece of Dentyne Ice gum for my breath.

            “You look fine, she shouldn’t expect a thing,” Mariellen said kindly, smoothing the back of my hair that I must have missed in my hurry to get out of the car.

            “Thanks, but you are very unaware of just how perceptive Kat truly is,” I muttered.  Tyler made a grimacing face that clearly said, “Good luck, you’re much more a mess than Mariellen has led you to believe.”

            I got out of the vehicle and shut the door, swung my satchel over my shoulder and boldly marched up the steps to the front door.

            Aunt Kat was in the sun room, painting obviously.  I could hear some sort of ska music, I thought it was probably Less Than Jake blasting from the speakers she recently added in there for herself, so she didn’t have to use headphones anymore, blocking everything else out.  In particular, me.

            “That you, Sophie?” I heard her voice shout out.

            “Yes,” I responded as the music level lowered.  “Just got back from lunch.”  I made a dash towards the stairs just as she yelled for me again.

            “Come in here for a second, I need to talk to you.”

            Damn it. I trudged back down the few steps I was able to climb, and made my way through the kitchen towards the sun room, where she was turned around on her stool expecting me, in her usual painted up junk garb and oversized overalls.

            “Yes?” I said, hoping my hair wasn’t really as bad as Tyler made it out to be.

            “I just wanted to let you know I have a gallery showing coming up in Los Angeles, and Bryan was going with me for support,” She started, twirling a paint brush around between her fingers. “I didn’t know if you wanted to come with us or if you wanted to stay in school…I’ll only be gone for a week.  But I know you have missed a lot of school as it is with everything this year…”

            “I’ll just stay in school,” I said straight away, wondering why she hadn’t told me sooner, but knowing I could not part myself that greatly from the protection of the wolves. “When are you leaving?”      

            “Well, that’s the thing.  It was supposed to be in a few days, but I think it’s going to have to be tomorrow night now.  There are some people I have to meet with prior to the event,” She explained with a guilty expression.  “I just feel really bad.  I know I haven’t got to spend very much time with you lately.  Are you doing okay?”

            “Yes, yeah I’m fine.  I’m great,” I mumbled quickly, folding my arms across my chest awkwardly.

            “Are you sure?  You’ve just been acting…funny lately.  Is something the matter?  Anything on your mind you wanna talk about?” She asked inquisitively.

            If only she knew just how much was on my mind, and how much I couldn’t talk about it or we’d all be dead.

            “I mean, with everything to do with the other night with you in the attic, the way you always just look so tired, like you haven’t slept in weeks,” Kat’s face grew more and more concerned as she reflected on these memories. “And when you do sleep, I hear you crying out sometimes, like you’re having the worst nightmares.  Are you sure everything’s okay with you and your friends, nothing’s been bothering you?”

            “Nothing’s bothering me,” was all I said as I went to turn around and leave, feeling badly because I knew she was just feeling as though she wasn’t there for me enough.

            “I’ve seen those marks on your arms, Sophia.  The burns?” She said before I could exit the scene.  I shut my eyes tightly, trying to brainstorm an excuse. I turned back around, fidgeting to pull the sleeves of my jean jacket up.

            “Oh, these?”  They had mostly faded by now, how had she even realized? “I…I got them from accidently leaning to close to the kiln the other day at work.”

            “Really?” Kat questioned.

            “Yeah, really,” growing annoyed at myself, my life, everything. This was a blatant lie, because I hadn’t even worked at the Pottery Playground in a week or so since the incident.  “I was reaching in to grab something and just got too close the walls.  Oops.”

            She stared at me for a moment with a solemn look on her face.  “You truly are a heck of a klutz, kid,” She said after a moment. “You definitely got that from your mother’s side.” 

            I just laughed a little and nodded in agreement. “Yepp, I got a lot from my mother’s side.”

            “Well, I got to finish this painting before tomorrow night, so I’ll be in here if you need me.  Stew’s in the crock pot if you get hungry.”

            “Thanks, but I have homework to finish before Christmas break,” was all I said before I went to hurry up to my room. 

 

Upstairs I threw on my headphones and sat at my desk, and sat and drew with my charcoals, instead of doing any of the homework I planned on.  I knew my grades were still in fairly good tact, so that all could wait.

I thought over everything that happened today, and honestly couldn’t understand what had happened with the whole seeing-Owen-dying, knowing someone else actually had died in his place, knowing it truly had been a vampire attack that led to the person’s decease.

Desperately I to keep my mind off of the subject, shading until the right side of my palm was completely black from all the smearing and smudging, and the picture before me depicted a story ; a young girl walking through the ferns holding a teddy bear, looking lost and confused.  I felt the expression on her face mirrored mine perfectly.

By this time I realized it was dark outside my window, crickets were chirping out in the vast fields around my house, and a full moon was iridescently shining down on the grass, alternating it to look a blue sea the old house could have been floating on.  I knew what the wolves must have been doing at this time.

Before I went to go change into my pajamas, I looked up at some of the snap shots I had put up on my bulletin board in front of my desk from those few happy days I spent at the beach with everyone.  The one I kept directly at my eye level was one of Owen and me.  Both of us looking happier than ever, in my opinion.  He was just behind my shoulders, hunching over me in a protective way, like he was suggesting I was his, in a way.  Well, at least it was the way I always imagined it every time I looked at the picture.  Big smiles were on both of our faces, as my hair blew backwards in the wind tangling around his thick neck.

I picked the picture up and held it close to my eyes, so I could examine the twinkling look in his gray marble eyes, the tender pink scar exposing itself through his eye brow, the way his thick dark brows arched so attractively, and how I knew the few tiny and sparse freckles strategically placed on his cheek. I wondered if I was the only one who knew about them.

I would die if anything happened to him, at my stupid cost.

Putting the picture back in its special place and getting up to go change, I wondered if he would ever be normal around me again like this, like how he used to be.  And more importantly, I wondered what made him change.

 

That night I fell asleep nearly instantly, but it was not an easy sleep at all.  Visions swarmed in and out of my head; I would wake momentarily and catch my breath, right before drowning again in the strange pictures all around me;

            Everything I kept seeing was the footage of a battle.  A bloody, loud, terrifying battle but I couldn’t figure out where or what it was.  Everything was so blurry, and all I knew was that I was standing there directly in the middle of it one second, and then the next I would wake up and be panting in my bed, just to be strapped back down and thrown into the battle again.   White, ghostly pale people were everywhere, and wolves flailed recklessly through the air.  Losing badly, from my perspective.   The numbers on the other side were just too great, it had to have been a surprise attack, one that the wolves couldn’t have seen coming.

            Suddenly everything around me changed, and there was Owen before me, standing in a white t-shirt, white pants, barefooted, with a golden crown placed on top of his head.   Starring at me blankly.  All around me, dark, shaking figures emerged from nothingness, their hisses loud and frightening, yet nothing was attacking me, capturing me, or even the slightest bit interested in me.  Instead, they were heading straight for Owen, who was still gawking at me, the look in his hypnotic and entrancing eyes defeated.  The figure at the point of the pack took one last final step towards him, and Owen bowed his head, the crown dropping to the dewy grass as he did so.  With one swift motion the bloodthief brought a clawed hand sharply downwards, directly overtop Owen’s exposed neck, severing the head from the body.  I shrieked, and the head rolled towards my feet, Owen’s beautiful eyes wide in terror starring directly into my own.  To my revulsion, he uttered seven last words.

“I did it for you, my queen.”

 

This time I woke with heart hammering faster than I could keep up with.  I was shaking, but only because I realized my window was opened in contrast to when I had shut it before I went to sleep, and the cold night air was spilling in delicately.  Eerily.

Someone had been here, I quickly realized, springing up from my mattress and looking around my room, as though the person would still be in the room, lurking around, and waiting for me to wake so I knew I was dying when they finished me off.

But no one was there.  However, to my great horror, I noticed the picture of Owen and I was no long hanging on my bulletin board in its special place.  Instead, it was lying upwards on my desk, Owen’s face perfectly torn out of the picture, leaving me alone, smiling, even though I no longer had a single thing to smile about.

Which clearly meant someone had been watching me.  Through the window, from the woods.  And chose to spare my life.  What kind of bloodthief would ever be able to have the power to spare my blood?

In even greater terror, I stood there looking at myself in the mirror, completely and totally unscathed this time, as opposed to every other time I had a vision.  I understood what this really meant.

I had not witnessed the Battle of the Beasts, this was another battle entirely.  And they obviously did not want to steal my life this time.  This time, they took the life of Owen Bledri.

This was certainly not the Battle of the Beasts, oh no.  This was a battle for the death of the lycan king.  An eye for an eye, you know.