Page 52 of To Save a Vampire

Something tugs at my memory. Where is he? Am I—

Am I dead?

The question doesn’t scare me. Death can’t be any worse. It can’t be worse than all the pain and all the loss and all the false hope.

I blink slowly, trying to pull the figures into perspective. The blurriness fades, but it’s still hazy as I look up.

My cloudy gaze is met with an intense stare. I look up at an angel with beautifully cursed silver eyes.

And then I know, without a doubt.

Death is the only explanation.

* * *

“You can’t really expect me to heal her?”

As soon as he speaks, my vision comes into focus, my conscious demanding to know who he is. My slow-pounding heart falters when I realize it isn’t Asher. A new sort of pain soars through me, my chest feeling heavy and empty all at the same time.

Asher’s not here.

“You want me to break the treaty to heal a girl who’s practically dead already?” The hybrid’s harsh and angry tone rises, his features are a blur of blonde hair and piercing bright eyes. The woman crosses her tan arms over her chest. My vision process their movements slowly.

“You couldn’t leave her here to die, and you know it. Just do it already!” She speaks in a stream of words, not at all intimidated by the scowling hybrid.

I can’t help but wonder where that confidence comes from within her.

Slowly I blink, wanting desperately to fade back into the comforting darkness of my mind. I watch as the hybrid rakes his palm against his sharp canines. Blood spills down his hand and forearm, and I have to close my eyes when I realize what will happen next.

I gasp when his hand touches my side; the pain drills through me at an alarming speed before dissolving into a warm and tingling sensation that furls through my abdomen like a current. The weight on my chest falls away, and I can breathe again. I don’t open my tired eyes; the healed wound only causes me to relax further into myself.

“It’s going to scar and might take some time to fully heal. Something … unnatural did this to her,” the hybrid says in a curious voice.

Together, they hoist me to my feet, my legs stumbling to keep up with them. The pain from my leg is nearly forgotten with the hybrid’s blood coursing through my body.

I try to stay awake. I try to keep my heavy lids open as we travel a few yards deeper into the woods. A wide and elderly looking tree catches my attention as we pass. Jagged words cut deep into the bark beckon to me:

Wanderers Welcome

“You’re safe,” the woman whispers to me as we pass the strange tree.

The two of them look at each other over my heavy head and pause before taking a deliberate and careful step forward, almost as if they’re stepping over an invisible line.

The forest goes quiet; the breeze and the heat of the sun and the wildlife fall away as we enter … something. A blinding light flashes, and I can physically feel a force passing through me like a jolt of electricity. I fling my head up, blinking rapidly at our new surroundings.

People bustle about, hundreds of them laughing and talking among themselves at wooden tables and near huts scattered throughout the area. No one else appears to have the signature hybrid eyes, but they are definitely not human. The way they move, gracefully and predatorily, gives them away for what they really are.

A few of them stop what they’re doing and hurriedly bring me water and clean bandages. The mystics have stopped to help the human girl. With wide eyes, I watch them all as I gulp down the cold and comforting water and allow them to lower me onto a boulder to inspect my wounds. The woman who found me in the woods stays at my side, offering a worried smile that touches her dark chocolate, animalistic eyes.

It’s then that I remember Asher’s words of the community of hiding mystics.

It really does exist.

And now I’m here in the safety of their large group, drinking down the heavy pain that has lodged in my chest from everyone who’s come and gone and died over the last few days.

We did it. We did exactly what we all set out to do.

We saved the vampire from his imprisonment.

But lost ourselves…

THE END