Dark Famiglia

Chapter 9

The school bell rings and Sabrina picks up her book bag from the ground.

"Since you're my friends, I want you to call me Lita. It's a nickname that Jayden used to call me during our days at the orphanage," said Sabrina with a cheerful smile, not letting Kason and Miguel know that she is getting weaker from not drinking enough blood.

"Sure thing," Kason says and smiles at Sabrina.

"Anyway, I have to go to my next class. I'll see you two later," replies Sabrina.

Sabrina walks back into the school building to go to her next class. Both Kason and Miguel follow behind. As Sabrina is walking in the hallway, someone starts screaming in excitement.

"Look, it’s Jayden Randell!" one of the girls says, then runs up to a group of girls.

"Jayden? Could it be him?" Sabrina says to herself and looks down the hallway.

Sabrina sees a tall, muscular teenage boy in the hallway, surrounded by a crowd of girls. Sabrina analyzes his profile. He is six feet tall. He has dirty blonde hair, pale skin, blue eyes, and stud earrings in both ears—the perfect body for any girl in high school who would faun over. Sabrina’s body starts trembling in excitement. She looks closer at the teenage boy with her vampire vision and sees the earrings he is wearing. Sabrina recognizes them. The earrings have a unique pattern on them that makes Jayden’s eyes more dazzling than ever.

"I gave Jayden those earrings the year before he left the orphanage. So, it's him. It’s really Jayden." Sabrina says in her thoughts as she touches the cross on her wrist.

"Brett, Turaya, I've found him. I've found Jayden at last." Sabrina whispered.

Sabrina stands in the hallway, frozen with tears threatening to fall. As Jayden scans around the hallway, he tries to find a way out of the barrier of girls surrounding him. He sees one particular girl who stands there alone, crying. It seems like she is being bullied. Jayden manages to find a way out and walks up to the girl, not realizing it's Sabrina.

"Are you okay? You're crying. Don't tell me that you're being bullied?" Jayden asks in concern.

"Jayden?" Sabrina calls out in between her sobs.

"Hey, don't cry. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." Jayden says as he begins to panic.

"Jayden, it's you, right?" asks Sabrina, wiping away her tears.

"What are you talking about?" Jayden asks confusingly.

Kason sees Sabrina talking to a guy on the other side of the hallway, looks at his watch, and calls out to her.

"Sabrina, come on. Class is starting any minute!" Kason shouts.

Sabrina looks at the clock on her phone and realizes what time it is.

"I'm coming, Kason!" replies Sabrina as she runs over to Kason after wiping away her tears.

"Who was that you were talking to?" Kason asks.

"Hahaha! My heart is beating so fast. But I shouldn't be saying that when my heart doesn't even beat. I'm a vampire, for crying out loud. Besides, vampires don't age." Sabrina says, trying to change the subject.

"Don't change the subject," Kason says in exasperation.

Both Kason and Sabrina walk to their classes.

Jayden stands in the hallway, confused as to what is going on.

"Why do I feel like I know that girl somehow? She's no ordinary girl, that's for sure. There was another kind of presence with her." says Jayden as he sees Sabrina walk away with Kason.

When Kason and Sabrina walk further down the hallway, Sabrina feels a sharp pain in her throat. Kason sees that Sabrina is in a lot of pain and becomes concerned.

"Are you alright, Lita? You look like you're in pain," Kason asks in concern.

"I'm fine," Sabrina says, trying to reassure Kason.

Kason isn't convinced that Sabrina is okay. Suddenly, Sabrina falls onto the floor, holding her throat with her hands.

"Sabrina!" Kason shouts out in panic.

Jayden turns around and sees Sabrina on the floor curled up in pain.

"No way! She collapsed?" Jayden says in surprise.

Sabrina's eyes change to the color amber as her fangs start to reveal themselves from her mouth.

"Sabrina, what's wrong? Skip that. I'm taking you to the nurse." Kason says in a scared voice.

Flashbacks of the night his sister was killed fill Kason's mind and his hands start trembling in fear. On the other side of the hallway, Jayden has several thoughts running through his mind and doesn’t know what to think.

"Could it be her? Could that girl I was talking to moments ago be Sabrina?" Jayden asks himself in worry. Memories of the day he turned Sabrina into a vampire and told her never to search for him flood his mind.

Even though Jayden is uncertain if the girl he talked to is Sabrina, he makes his way to his next class. Back over to where Sabrina and Kason are on the other side of the hallway, Kason takes a few deep breaths to calm down. Kason picks up Sabrina in his arms despite the fear running through his body and his trembling hands. He runs to the nurse's office and barges in with Sabrina in his arms. Kason sees the nurse sitting at his desk.

"Please help her! I don't know what's happening with Sabrina!" Kason shouts in a panic.

The nurse sees the look on Sabrina’s face and quickly gets her onto one of the beds after he guides Kason where to set Sabrina down. Sabrina holds her throat with her hands and starts choking.

"Do you know what happened to your friend?" the nurse asks.

"Not exactly. But I think I know what Sabrina needs. She needs to drink blood." says Kason with terror in his voice.

The nurse sees Sabrina's eyes and realizes how severe the situation is.

"Then there's no time to waste! She hasn't drunk enough blood to sustain her." The nurse says in a hurried voice. He walks over to his desk and grabs a glass vile and a syringe from one of the drawers. It’s a vile of Juniper poison. He enters the syringe and pulls out a tiny amount into the syringe. It can only temporarily paralyze the vampire as long as it’s a very small amount. Not kill them. Kason looks at the nurse in surprise.

"Wait, you believe me?" Kason asks.

"We'll talk about it later. There's no time to be talking." The nurse says.

"Alright," Kason says in agreement.

Sabrina tries to speak when she hears the word blood.

"No! I won't… drink his blood… I promised myself… I would never drink from a human ever again." Sabrina pleads through her gasps of air.

"That's irrelevant right now, Sabrina. Even though you're a vampire, I don't want to see you die. I've already lost someone important to me. I don't want to see that ever again. Please, just drink my blood." Kason says, trying to convince Sabrina to drink his blood.

"I know that you can't forgive yourself for killing that man last year. I can't imagine the pain you're going through right now, but Lita, you have to drink my blood. If you don't, you'll die. I promise you it will be alright. Remember that you're not alone anymore. You have your family, you have Jayden, you have your warlock friend, you have Miguel, and you have me. You can depend on us." Kason says as he gives a confident smile to reassure Sabrina.

"You're a fool… you know that…?" says Sabrina as she gives a pained smile to Kason.

"I know, Lita. But this fool can't lose another important person to him." Kason replies with a sad smile.

Sabrina looks at Kason's wrist. She can see the vein pulse with Kason's blood coursing through it. Her eyes glow an even brighter amber color.