Hidden in the Darkness V1: A Darkened Fevered Dream

CHAPTER 8- Killer Vengeance

        MASTER’S P.O.V

 I punch a tree down and run to the chambers where that little b***h was kept inside the cabin I built for myself and my love before that thing was born… God, I hate it. It is all her fault!  What's- her-name was born and my love, Mal, got sick. I watched her worsen as that thing grew and got stronger and stronger as if it deserved too!  I had to end my loves life so she didn’t have to suffer through the pain, that child is the devil! 

I don’t understand how she never blamed or got mad at the thing! Mal was just that forgiving, like an angel, she was so kind. I lean my head against the wooden house, my hand between the wood and my forehead, shielding God's view of me and I let a tear slip. 

That thing doesn’t suffer nearly enough for the pain she caused me and my Melissa. I’ll find her! That wolf can be anywhere but I won’t stop looking until she’s mine again, along with the wolf. My property, I’ll kill the wolf that is a disgrace and bring the girl the suffering God knows she deserves.

                                    Bri’S P.O.V 

I wake up, squinting at the light shining through the window. I sit up slowly, fully dressed in t-shirt and jeans, my black hair in ponytail. I feel…different, happy, I think or maybe somewhat peaceful. I stand up, feeling my bruises stretch as they heal, it is strange to me, to feel them heal.

  Something inside me has already shifted, still somewhat in a daze. I walk in a trance, down the stairs into the kitchen to see my true family there. They are talking and laughing.  I feel as if I’m watching a dream,“Hi.” 

I speak in a small voice, afraid to shatter the image before me. 

“Oh, you're up…good we have a question for you.”

 Liz speaks in an excited voice, emphasizing her words. I give a small look of confusion that I can feel creases my face.  

“We wanted to see if maybe you’d be interested in attending VINITA high school as like an adopted sibling?”

 I feel my surprise and the eagerness for the chance to go freeze on my face, I didn’t expect that. I haven’t thought of school, I’ve seen Bloom and the others get up and leave. It was always a luxury my mother could never give me.  

“Everybody else does, so... yeah, I’d love too.” 

She turns to Jake, “Told you.” 

she says as she grins showing her front teeth and the tip of her fangs in the corners. A wide smile, a real smile. 

“Whatever she’ll regret it…school sucks.” 

Jake shoots back, throwing a football up and down in his hands. She rolls her eyes and takes a bag of blood from the fridge. I eye her wondering where she got that stuff, it fascinates me. She pours it into a cup and another for Baron. Baron sees my look, chuckles in a matter of fact tone. Bloom seems completely unaffected by the scene, even Jake seems accustomed. 

“Donated, there’s a werewolf over at the blood bank. He’s more than eager to keep us at bay, he was our parents friend.” He didn’t continue because it seems the atmosphere has changed in the room. Jake, Lix and Baron all get the same crease in their perfect foreheads. I don’t need any more explaining, as a favor to the family the man smuggles blood out of pity for the situation. Jake had explained it to me a few nights ago,the oddness of their family.

 I snap from my thoughts as something is tossed at me, a backpack. 

 “Let's go.” Bloom doesn’t sound very excited, I give her a look and look at the window. The sun was almost above the trees in early light.

 “Now?” I ask, skeptic, it’s so late in the day.

 “ Yep, welcome to school.” 

“Okay.” It seems a tad late to me as Bloom seems like she thinks it is too early. I shrug my shoulders and start walking toward her, I stand beside her. I can’t help but feel happy. Being so close I notice her face much better. She has circles under her eyes.

“Did you sleep well you look…tired.” I said.

 “ yeah, I’m human and need more sleep.” she looks at me still using her joking tone. I give a small smile, it isn’t very funny to evade the questions I ask. I feel afraid to push the subject, she can always turn it around on me. Ask me questions I don’t want to answer. 

“Okay, let's go.” I take hold of the cool door handle. I’m  yearning to go to this school, I have heard of school briefly through the other girls and boys Master has kept prisoner before killing, those people held stories of a world I now am in.

Who wouldn't want to know more about where their from and what causes it all? Questions press themselves against my skull. I don't speak them though, I fear being an outcast. As excited as I am, Liz is the only one matching my decor. I turn my eyes to Jake as we pile out the door, nothing particular has me looking at his face. 

He’s absently watching the sky but even as he is so absent minded, he is still so strong and serious. He acts so carefree but his eyes swirl with heavy responsibility. It all happens in a moment, one moment I am flashing my eyes over Jake and the next, I'm frozen in fear. I am still,looking at one of the black giant monsters that I had seen on that rock. 

They continue to chat with one another and smile as they walk towards the beast. I feel something tingly in my stomach -almost like throwing up. I gulp, hoping to clear the weird sensation but, I fail. The creature shines in the sunlight and almost looks a shade of blue wherever the sun kisses it. Bloom glances back and she gets this odd look on her face as if she is confused. She finishes her sentence and then stops walking, she turns to squarely face me. Her half smile fell quickly and a panicked tension rises between us and soon everyone sensed my fear and looks to me silently with intense eyes.   

"Bri, what's wrong? .... Say something." Bloom demands in a strong sounding voice laced with panic. I can't talk I just don't know what to say, the beast is there, behind them, with no name to me and no one fears it but me. 

I take a shaky breath and urge my legs to walk, although they refuse. I don't feel my arm move from its frozen position but in the corner of my vision I see my pale skinny arm point to the thing. The group looks in the direction of my finger and then looks around the beast, right past into the forest's edge. 

"The monster...it's right there...right in front of you, what do we do?" My voice strains with the barely audible words.  Liz starts to slump back into a relaxed position and huffs in annoyance and impatience. My cold stare breaks to acknowledge the place of the noise."Bri, we've been standing here for like 10 minutes.What is it, where is it, who is it?"

I realized she wanted to know what frightened me and reacted with direct anger rather than admitting any growing fear. 

"The big creature behind you, I don't know who or what it is...it's so silent I think it's dead..." At the thought of it being dead, I’m allowed to reduce my fear as it isn't making any noises of attack. Bloom and the others look behind them at the creature and Bloom made an odd sound of acknowledgement. She turns to me and than back to the beast and continues to steadily walk to its body. She touches the unmoving surface for a minute while I hold my breath, afraid that it will spring to harm her. She curiously looks back to me with furrowed eyebrows and a concentrated look.

"Is this the beast you're talking about?"

I hesitantly nod, beginning to feel that whatever that thing is wasn't going to hurt me and I begin to feel, for some reason, shame for being afraid. 

A heavy sigh is released from the group, nearly simultaneously, and grins start to breakout. Liz is the first to start laughing away the edge she must feel. I feel a warm pressure in my eyes and I want to cry because I feel out of place. That peace from this morning retracted in a single moment. I am reminded that I am not one of them. I am what they are laughing at.

 A few breathless chuckles and Liz's intense laughter dies down. I look to Bloom and she also looks relieved but somehow her eyes tell me she also found whatever I just did humorous. Defensive rage courses through my veins as fear became a secondary emotion. "What? What are you laughing at? Stop it!"

Everyone’s laughter dulls to defensive and tight smiles, even Liz gets this pitiful look in her eyes. 

"Sweetheart, we're sorry. You just about gave me a heart attack haha, as if I can even have a heart attack! Ha! You don't have to fear the truck hun, and we didn't mean to laugh it's just so funny."

"A truck? What does this truck do? How did it die?"

Liz starts laughing at my obviously obvious questions. 

" Liz, guys, please go wait in the car. I'll meet you there in a minute, I wanna talk to Bri a bit on my own."  Bloom spoke with certainty and a softness I'd not seen from her before as if she were older. It reminded me of how mom used to talk. They all exchange looks but Baron does silently follow her request and the others follow his example. 

I am left alone feeling stupid as tears prick their way onto my eyes. I embarrassed myself in front of Bloom and everyone, they all laughed at me. 

"Bri, I don't really know how to phrase what I need to say but it never occured to any of us of how much of society you really haven’t known. 

I don't know what you know and what you don't, how you know it or how you'll react to the things you don’t know. I know it's hard to feel outcasted and I'm sorry you have to feel that way but it won't always be this way. So what. You don't know what a truck is? You'll learn. As long as you're willing to learn, you'll never be the fool. I feel like a fool almost every day of my life, I understand how...that just felt, being laughed at. 

There's obviously a lot of things that we are going to have to teach you and a lot you'll teach us. Okay, I'm not too good at talking about deep s**t, I normally don't deal with my own problems, I just come here to escape them so, you’re honestly so brave. I'll  just...uhm...okay come here, look." She shoves her hand into her pocket and digs a bit before pulling out a fist full of little round things. 

Three of these round thin things are laid out in her hand and as I draw nearer, I see them all shine, yet one is a dark color, a different looking one. 

" Look at these coins, this brown one is penny. The medium silver one is a nickel and the big one is a quarter. These all are apart of a thing we call money, it's a big and complicated subject that I'll talk more about later. But right now, just look at the coloring and the faces in the coins. 

See this little brown one has a man facing to the right while the others face the left. See, the penny is the only one that's different. Do you see the difference? Well, the guy in the penny was one of our presidents a long time ago, during the Civil War which I'll tell you about later if you don't already know. Anyway, his name was President Lincoln and during the war he promised African Americans, who were at that point enslaved, freedom if they came to fight in the civil war. Oh “war” is fighting between large groups of people I guess...uhm, like a pack of wolves fighting a pack of bobcats, just two different clans fighting. Anyway, he freed the African Americans and that was a big step. We changed for the better because of President Lincoln.

 I don't know if this is fact but my theory as to why his face is on the brown penny and is looking the opposite way from the others, Lincoln changed the world and the lives of thousands, all because he dared to be different. If you line up the coins you can see that the faces in the silver coins get to see the coin in front of it, like following in their footsteps almost, but the penny gets to see a bigger, better world...I'm sorry this probably made you  even more confused, I'm sorry, that was stupid. I just..." 

She trails off and looks to the ground. She shakes her head slightly at herself. I want nothing more than to hug her because I feel happy and clear. I feel like I understand, she told me that it's okay to be different.  That's all I knew before this place and here she is, telling me exactly what I need to be reminded of. I am myself and whoever that is, is fine.