Page 3

Two

HARLOW

“Mommy, help me! It’s dark…so dark. Help!”

As quickly as the thought passes through my nightmares, it shifts to something more recent. Something more painful. The recurring memories that plague me so often since two months ago.

“Mom! Dad!” But the fire blazes on. It’s too much. Too ? —

No!

I rip myself from that memory, clawing at the blankets constricting my legs like a snake swallowing its prey. They’re too much, too tight, too unforgiving, and panic rises, my heart hammering until it’s painful enough to rip me from sleep and away from the cavern of hell I find myself continuously tripping down: the memories of that night and the earlier childhood screams for my mother.

Fucking claustrophobia, a fear plaguing me since I was a kid. Makes sleeping impossible when the blankets continuously tighten around my body, resulting in a sensation of being enclosed somewhere inescapable.

My eyes open, mind repeating the four little words that try to convince my mental state it’s all okay.

I didn’t mean to.

I didn’t mean to.

I didn’t mean to.

It’s a stupid attempt and something the internet suggested. That therapist’s website was so full of bullshit. Nothing changes what happened weeks ago, and nothing ever will.

Nothing chases away the shadows that have consumed me. Literally, not the metaphorical ones. The literal shadows that bend, shielding my bedroom into near obscurity. The slithery voice—nothing decipherable—snakes through my mind, like a barely there caress that taunts me with both heartbreak and desire. With endless power while being powerless.

They won’t go away. They’ve been a part of me since the accident. Every day, they’re here , trailing me throughout the house. No matter how much sunlight I allow in, the shadows bend, shutting it all out while keeping me captive. I have no control over them, no way to make them go away. They’re suffocating, making the walls feel that much closer, playing on my claustrophobia.

I’m positive it’s punishment from Hecate. She’s chosen the one thing that makes the world feel smaller, the one thing that could affect me so much. It’s the most logical explanation as to why shadows are tormenting a witch without magick. Why they won’t go away—because they’re here on Her orders. Which is contradictory, considering shadows represent Darkness, while the Goddess is everything Light, good, and natural.

This is Her cruel reprimand for accidentally killing two of her children, a witch and warlock: my parents. Murder is one of the wickedest things a witch could do to another. Mom and Dad taught me that early on, which is so ironic, it’s nearly laughable.

If laughing is even possible for me anymore.

Not only are the shadows punishment, but they hold an allure I find concerning. For a few moments every day, when they’re at their strongest, the slithery sensation feels like a hug rather than a threat. They make me feel just a bit better. At peace, though not a comfortable, calm serenity. More like I’m on edge, faced with a threat I’ll need to react to. But there’s a strength in that too. They tease me with the desire to leave this house and prove to every immortal around why I’m no longer the same witch I was and why they shouldn’t fuck with me.

I don’t listen to that random urge because, for one, I’m still partially convinced the shadows are solely in my imagination and I’m making all this up, which suggests I’m nuts. And two, I’m nuts.

I mean, a slithery sensation, physical shadows that taunt me, a voice in my head. What else could it be other than my parents’ deaths have made me clinically insane?

Oh, yes, the voice—the singular reason keeping me semi-sane while distracting me from my self-hatred, grief, and the fact my life changed in a single night. A few minutes of time, really. Funny how a little stretch of it can have such lasting effects. No buildup, no warning. It just happened, and I was too far gone to stop it.

Amidst it all, the thing keeping me grounded is his voice. A voice that only ever murmurs my name, in an almost disapproving tone. Mind you, it’s probably evidence of my newfound insanity.

Newfound? While the shadows are new, I’m half-convinced I was already on the train to nowhere since my twenty-fourth birthday five months ago, because that was the first time I heard the voice. Even then, it was only my name, spoken in a manner that felt like my mind was being stroked while simultaneously drifting through the rest of my body, making me come alive.

I never admitted any of it to Mom and Dad because even witches shouldn’t be hearing voices. I’d never heard of it happening, not that my knowledge of my own kind really extends past whatever my parents taught me and what’s inside my grandmother’s grimoires. Most witches grow up within a coven, with a High Priestess to guide them on the Goddess’s path, but not me. I lost that opportunity a few centuries ago, when my ancestors cursed me to be the way I am.

The way I am is the entire reason I was put into this mess. It may have been my ancestors’ actions, but Hecate never once thought to get rid of it? Help save us? How many Sinclairs have died because of it? Ridiculous our own creator abandoned my bloodline.

The fucking vampire cure. The cure to goddamn vampirism is the entire reason vampires continue to target me. Why I’ve grown up inside a house coated in protection spells and never allowed out past sunset when the vampires emerge.

It’s the cure’s fault my parents are dead.

But it’s also mine, and no enchantment can change that. I should know, because the days following the accident, when this house and its items were mysteriously alright and unburned, I poured over Gram’s grimoires for something that’d change the past, reverse time or something. A spell to bring them back.

Pointless, because if there was a way, it’d require powers to do it.

As usual, waking up is due to nightmares, and then nudged along by the stream of self-hatred and misery. At this point, it’s useless to attempt falling asleep again. Getting through the night is a miracle in itself, so with a groan, I push myself up and start another day of pretending to be fine. Pretend to no one but me, myself, and I. Oh, and my shadowy friends, of course. This whole house is tainted with memories of Mom and Dad, and I hate it survived the burning with very few marks to show. Probably another one of Hecate’s punishments: to force me to live within the physical manifestation of everything I once had and everything I’ve lost.

I switch on the bedside lamp, letting the room fill with a soft light. It teases the edges of the shadows, attempting to push them away. My phone lights up with my tap, the time reading 2 a.m. and nowhere near a decent time to get up.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Two in the morning means I only slept three hours, but it isn’t all that surprising. I haven’t slept a full night since their deaths, and at this point, I may never sleep again. Perhaps I’ll die of exhaustion and all my problems will be solved.

I slide from bed and yank on pyjama pants I’m not entirely sure have been washed recently before heading out of my room, passing the shut door of the one once belonging to my parents, and into the bathroom. On the way, I regard the bundle of rosemary and sage on the hallway window’s sill. It’s extra protection that doesn’t require magick to activate, though I’m certain the barrier that somehow found itself around the property is keeping the monsters away.

Each night, I’m tempted to toss the herbs away and leave the house and its protection. To let the vampires who are undoubtedly stalking this place come after me. If I’m lucky, one of them will drain me dry and end this miserable existence where I have to pretend to be a grieving daughter rather than a murderer.

But every time I go near that front door, that finicky thing called self-preservation keeps me inside and safe.

Self-preservation…and that smooth voice. Between him and the shadows, I truly am convinced Hecate is playing a cruel game. Seeing how tight she can pull before I snap.

Won’t be much longer now.

Mom would kill me if she knew I was having such thoughts about the Goddess, but it’s difficult to think anything positive about Her. All things considered, She abandoned me when my parents did, leaving me alone with my miserable thoughts, a random male voice, and bleak shadows.

I finish in the bathroom and pass the same window, pausing to look at the flowerbeds in the backyard Mom once religiously tended to. They’re dying now, uncared for and unloved, and it’s with a sharp stab in my heart I realize, yet again, I’ve failed. I should be caring for them. Keeping the one thing I have of Mom still alive. She’d like that.

Tomorrow, I decide. Or rather, later today. When the sun’s up, I’ll head outside, get fresh air, and see if I can revive Mom’s precious plants.

With a bit of renewed energy joining with my misery, I turn into my bedroom’s doorway.

Only to stop when it’s not the way I left it.

For one, the shadows are completely gone, and for the first time since that night, they’re not forcing impossible weight on me.

Maybe it’s my hallway plans that did it.

The second thing isn’t giving me a chance to consider my missing shadows for any longer. Because the guy perched on the edge of my bed certainly wasn’t here before.

The room goes still. He doesn’t move, and I can’t move. Can’t do anything but study the stranger—albeit, a handsome one—who’s invaded my home unannounced and got by me.

There’s only one kind of person who could manage that.

A vampire.

All those self-preservation instincts kick into overdrive, mind whirling with every possibility of what to do, given my current limitations. I’m already at the door and have a head start if I run, but he’d probably catch me before I made it to the stairs.

How did he get in? My gaze darts to the window. The barrier is held up by magick; he couldn’t have possibly slipped through. It’s built specifically to keep creatures like him away.

Unless it’s no longer up…which is entirely possible. My hands curl in on themselves. Fucking useless tools.

Maybe he’s one more thing to add to the ever-growing pile of ways to torment me.

In an abrupt movement that seems to ruffle no part of the surrounding air whatsoever, he gets to his feet. Silent, steady, and stealthy, letting me take in exactly how he towers over me. Easily a foot taller than me, not that height really matters considering the strength their kind has.

Hair so black, it shines like the nighttime sky against the dull backdrop of my bedside lamp. It curls around his ears and masks the tops of his eyes—also deep and dark as a void of nothingness. He’s like a nightmare come to life. His skin is pale, a common attribute of vampires, but unlike others who look like walking corpses, this one makes it work. There’s a sexiness to him, enthralling in that lethal way so many of them are. It’s simply one way they lure in their prey. Every flawless inch of him is a hunter.

I slide my foot behind me, managing to gain a fraction more of distance between him and me.

His head ticks to the side instantly, his immortal hearing catching the subtle movement. His lips curl until the tips of his fangs peek out. I jolt at the sight of his weapons, my stomach coiling in warning.

“Don’t be stupid. If you run, I’ll be forced to chase, and I promise you will not like it when I catch you.”

His voice is strangely soft, silky almost. A purr reverberating throughout my body, warming my insides in a way I can’t decide is pleasurable or not. Likely a protective instinct and nothing more…even if it feels like my body’s trying to tell me something else. Something bigger. Something begging me to hear him and realize what I already know.

My heart pounds in my chest, hands forming fists. I can’t fight my way past him; one pinch of a finger and his strength would drop me instantly. And my magick…well, yeah. Words are all I got. I’m left with talking him down.

“H-how did you get in here?” One hand wraps around one of my wrists, fingers brushing along old scars I know to be there. It’s an anxious twitch I’ve never been able to get rid of.

He doesn’t reply, leaving me to my own conclusions: the barrier failed, exactly like so much in my life has.

“Wh-what do you want?”

I know what he wants. It’s the same as all the others who stalk my house.

“You.”

Of course it’s me. It’s always me. Ever since my ancestor cursed me to live like this.

“Get out,” I demand, my voice strangely calm and steady. The questions of how and why matter less than getting him to leave. Even though I’m about to lose a fruitless fight without being able to defend.

He takes a step, and I do too, crossing my bedroom’s threshold. The stairs are only a couple feet away. If I run, I can get downstairs and maybe out of the house before he catches up. Maybe. A slim possibility at best. And if I managed it, where would I go? He’ll catch me no matter what. Hiding with neighbours will only result in their deaths. Running to the police would get me locked up in a psychiatric ward. And that’s only if I manage to escape that far.

I lift my hands for the first part of my lie, ready to fake my way to safety. “You’re a brave vampire to be entering a witch’s home. Leave, or you’ll burn.”

“Yes, yes,” he drawls. “You Sinclairs have always had a penance for fire. Destructive little things, aren’t you?”

His comment hits the part of my heart closest to where grief is stored, but I try not to reveal the little power he could so easily gain with a few choice words.

“You seem to know a lot about my family.”

All witches are born with one kind of elemental magick, which can command, control, and create the natural world related to the element: earth, air, water, or fire. My powers are bred in fire, exactly like every Sinclair before me. It’s the comfortable heat I’ve grown up with—and now miss almost as much as Mom and Dad.

He chuckles, the sound almost depraved and teasing. “Probably more than you.”

“Which tells me you’ve had dealings with us in the past. So you’ll know I’m not the witch to piss off.”

“Then do it.”

He wasn’t supposed to call my bluff.

I wait for the familiar tingle of heat in my palms, the feeling of freedom rushing through me. Of control and power and strength.

The feeling I called upon to save my parents when vampires attacked our home.

The same heat that formed balls of fire to kill the pointy-teeth assholes.

The magick I haven’t felt since then.

Come on, come on. Body, if there’s a time to work, now would be it. Hecate, if you could give me a thirty-second break from my punishment, I will pay you a tribute every single day for the remainder of my pathetic life.

The vampire takes another step, a dark brow arching in a daring manner. This is all a game to him, and with that look, he’s goading me to fight back. Oh, how I’d play his game…if only my magick worked.

Witches aren’t taught magick necessarily. Enchantments and control, yes, but we’re born with the power and it’s unlocked with puberty. I’ve had my magick since I was thirteen and managed to control it by seventeen, when I gained a much better handle on my ever-fluctuating teenage emotions— thanks, hormones —considering a witch’s magick is so closely tied to our emotional being.

I call upon fright and self-perseveration to save me, like I did the night of my parents’ deaths. For my magick to function again. I think about every lesson on control Mom and Dad taught me in lieu of us having a High Priestess and push it away. Control isn’t what I need right now.

Come on, come on, come on!

The vampire laughs, his melodic voice cutting through my determination. “Oh, this is good. You don’t have your magick, do you?”

I refuse to answer, to admit any weakness to my new enemy, to address what truly happened the night my parents died.

“Harlow, run!” Dad’s voice comes from down the hallway, and there’s only one thing that would suggest the sharp fear in his tone.

I bolt towards the kitchen since the back door is the closest to me and the farthest away from the crash that just came through the front of the house, and hopefully the direction the vampires won’t expect me to go.

My hand’s on the door handle when the loudest scream chills me to my bone, masking the natural heat from my magick.

Mom.

She’s by the stairs, throwing shield after shield up against one of the intruders, but it’s the one who came up behind her, its teeth jamming into her shoulder, that distracts her.

Beyond her, Dad is fighting against two more—and losing.

I can’t run. They’ll die.

Mom screams again, and I whirl around, calling every flame buried within me. Every ounce of my fear and anger burns through me.

I only aim for the one feeding from Mom, to burn him to death and kill him in one of a few ways vampires are able to be killed: burning, decapitation, and ripping their heart out. Instead, my magick comes out in a massive wave that knocks me to the ground.

And the world burns in a mirage of red, orange, yellow…and black.

I tried to save Mom but instead killed both my parents and the attacking vampires.

When I woke up, I no longer had access to my magick, shadows bathed my surroundings in an inescapable blackness, and a barrier was erected around the house. I figured it was the last act of my power. The emotion that went along with saving them did the one thing I never knew was possible: drained me entirely. The barrier was my magick’s final protection.

The stranger grins, his fangs seeming larger. He takes another step forwards, but I jerk my hands in his direction again.

“N-no, that’s not it. Stay away from me or I’ll?—”

“You’ll what?” he asks mockingly. “Push me to death?”

In a flash I miss entirely, a movement quicker than a blink, he’s standing in front of me, his body closer than I’ve ever been to a vampire. His head hangs over mine, his fangs dangerously close.

Apparently that self-preservation that’s been keeping me alive the last little while is broken, because when my head screams at me to run, I remain, captivated by his gaze. His voice. By him . By the way, as inexplicable as it is, he feels safe and familiar.

This must be one of his powers. A thrall or something that compels me to want to be near him so he can strike.

Then he opens his mouth, and every ounce of that comfortable reaction wanes.

“Harlow Sinclair. Oh, how much fun we’re about to have.”

It’s not what he said. Not that he knows my first name.

It’s how he spoke it.

It’s the exact same as the voice in my head.

Fuck this.

I turn and run.