My hands shook as I walked toward the door. Behind me, Garrett was rushing after me. He kept calling my name and demanding that I listen to him over and over again while tripping over his underwear and pants. "Jade!" he shouted. "Wait!"I didn’t wait. I couldn’t even look at his face. I tried to open the door but it was locked. Locked. I looked around for the key and didn’t see it lying on the floor or anywhere nearby. When I walked in, what did I do with it? I couldn’t recall at the moment. Bag. It was in my bag. I unzipped it and searched around for the key. There was so much junk in my bag that it was hard to find but I finally managed to grip it in my hand. Garrett made the most of the fact that I was rooted to the spot and finished getting dressed. He was still bare-chested. My guess was that he forgot to grab his shirt as he followed me from the bedroom. “Jade,” he said again, exhaustion lacing his voice. He had just finished buttoning his pants and was walking toward me sl
I blinked repeatedly at first, unsure of what the hell I was seeing. I was in complete disbelief as I stared at the kitchen around me. The walls were all splattered with blood. The floor as well. The counter. Everywhere had some blood on it. It wasn't just blood. It was blood and...particles. Soft material. I looked at my hands and it was covered in the same thing. I stepped back until my back hit the sink. Garrett and Samantha. Where did they go?My body reacted before I could accept the impossibility that just happened. I threw my guts up in the sink. It felt like my stomach was being torn apart. I had never felt this sick before. I wiped my mouth after I was done but realized far too late that my hand was covered in that red stickiness and I had got it in my mouth. I could taste it in my lips. I retched again. Not much came up and my stomach hurt by the time I was done. I crumbled to the ground and hugged my knees. I gave myself a few minutes. Just a few. I didn't focus on the b
The ride was taking an eternity and a half. I was sure that it would take even longer for me to arrive at my destination and with this weirdo just standing there, this was bound to be the longest ride of my life. I was still trying to decide if I had heard him say ‘that’s what you are’ or whether I just imagined it. It was hard to tell because when I looked at his face, his lips were sealed. He didn’t look like he had said a word. So much was going on—so many weird things—that it wasn’t all that hard to believe that I heard those words in my head. But the way he looked at my shoes and smiled at me was a good indication that he knew something, which was practically impossible because I didn’t know him. He didn’t know me. It could be anything on my shoes. He was just a weirdo, and I was so paranoid that I was reading into things a little too much. I needed to calm down. I looked to my left and saw a middle-aged woman sitting with her hands on her lap. Everything about her was ord
I started to stumble backward and tripped on absolutely nothing. As a result, I came crashing down. I ignored the pain of the impact and started running blindly, not daring to look back at the horror I just saw in the alleyway. I didn’t even turn to look to see if the man was chasing after me. Oh my God, what was that? What the actual fuck was that?I didn’t even think of an answer. I made a sharp right and kept running. I saw two guys walking on the other sidewalk across the street. I glanced at them and they stared back at me like they thought I was crazy. The reason why I didn’t tell them about what I just saw and screamed for help was because they y look like they could help me. Actually, going up to them felt like getting myself into even more trouble. No, I had to keep running until I found something that could actually help me. I looked around quickly and tried to figure out where I was. I knew this area but nothing came to mind at the moment. I couldn’t associate this plac
I had no choice but to follow him out of the shop, where we left the owner grumbling as he cleaned the mess we made. The mess I made. I was too scared to try to free myself and at the moment, I was experiencing a mind numbness that wasn’t allowing me to rationalize and think too deeply. I was only thinking about how he knew what happened. In the train, it was almost as if he had answered a thought I had, and now, crazily and terrifyingly enough, he seemed to have done the same thing back in the shop. We crossed the street. He didn’t look from left to right and I didn’t either. I was only staring at the back of his head. His fingers were bruising my skin. He was gripping me with so much force that I was surprised my wrist hadn’t snapped in two. I could no longer as where we were going. I could only go with him wherever he wanted to take me, which was insane. He could very well be walking me to my death. He would kill me just as he had killed that old woman. Tears sprung to my eyes
“Your eyes,” I gasped as I stood. The shock made me stand and back away. “They’ve…what the hell are you!?”“Sit down,” he commanded, “and I’ll tell you.”Again, I was left without a choice. I had to sit down and do as I was told because I was already here and there was nowhere to go. I sat down but my body was inched away from him. My skin was crawling. I was more terrified than ever because I knew that he truly wasn’t human. No human could do this. No human had eyes like this. He raised a finger and showed me a contact lens. A brown one so brown that it was almost black. I didn’t even see him remove them. “First of all, I didn’t change my eye color, not the way you think I did.”I felt stupid but I knew I was onto something. “Why are your eyes that color?”“You already guessed it,” he dryly informed me. “How do you know that?” I asked in disbelief. There were more questions I wanted to ask but for now, that was all I wanted to know. I felt that it would perhaps help explain all o
I counted four of them, including the vampire. They all walked into the living area, everyone talking all at once. I couldn’t catch what they were saying because my mind was a mess and they were talking too fast. They also weren’t making much sense. I heard ‘pack’ and ‘disaster’ and immediately felt lost. When they saw me, they fell silent. There were two guys and a woman with them. She appeared to be much older than all of them and they were about the same age as the vampire. I could only stare at them as my mouth dried up. It was only after a full minute that I wondered if they were also vampires, like him. “Is that…?” one of the guys began before glancing at the vampire. He nodded grimly and his face paled. He stepped back and said, “No way. Not a chance. We’re not going to do this, Felix, not today and not ever.”Felix. His name was Felix. “You’ve got to stop with your bullshit,” the other man said. “You keep getting us in danger with this kind of reckless behavior. She’s no
Felix was out the door before I could say anything else and I had to follow him. As soon as I stepped out, he locked the door behind me. I kept looking at him and hoping that he would tell me that he was joking (considering I mentioned it earlier) but he didn’t say anything as he pushed the elevator’s button and waited for the doors to open. We then stepped into the elevator and stood alongside each other. I recalled how he was gripping my wrist and decided to look. Sure enough, it was almost black and it hurt when I flexed my hand. Great. Even so, this wasn’t enough to distract me from what he had said. I glanced at him again and he made an expression of pure annoyance. He said, “Stop it.”“Tell me you’re lying.”“I’m lying.”“Are you?”He narrowed his eyes at me and looked away. “You can’t be serious,” I argued as we stepped out into the lobby. To my absolute surprise, it was nighttime. But it couldn’t be the same day. I slept for a long time up there. Did I end up sleeping for