Chapter 2
Ren slammed through the back doors and took in a large gulp of fresh air. He closed his eyes. The leaves rustled and the wind whistled. It wouldn't be long before the parking lot would be full of kids. Their voices would be louder than his thoughts.
The end of the year felt so far away. The Mines felt like a big dream he'd imagined. He had to keep reminding himself the it was a real place where he could leave all this shit behind. In Sanguine he wouldn't be an outsider. He would finally belong.
It had to be better than this. It had to be. Otherwise, Ren didn't know what else he would do.
Autumn had settled, leaving a chill in the air and dead leaves on every inch of the ground.
A group of kids walked out into the parking lot. Ren couldn't seen them, so he hoped they couldn't see him. Though he tried not to, he yearned for their blood. He could hear the pounding of their hearts and the pulse of their bloodstreams.
He was entranced by it. He imagined what it would taste like to sink his fangs into their skin.
Ren snapped out of it. Their voices drifted in the wind.
A few minutes passed and the cold air bit at his chapped lips. He turned his hand over, examining the breaks and cracks around his knuckles.
He flexed his hand, remembering the large bruise that had been there years before when he'd fought back against Regan. It didn't seem so long ago when Regan had started messing with him.
If he had the guts, Ren wouldn't have let him get so mouthy.
He dropped his hand, sighing, as he tilted his head to gaze up into the cloudy sky.
God. He couldn't wait to get out of here.
The sun was beginning to set when he took off, taking the lonely trail that lead back to the one place he loved.
What followed him was the buzzing and the thirst for human blood.
***
The house came into view. The small blue two story house sat next to a creek. It had been built by his grandparents and was intended for three.
There were only two living in the quiet sanctuary. His grandparents had died before he was born. The memories he had of them were stored away in photos and the ring he wore around his neck.
He clamored up the rickety steps, taking note that the middle one needed to be fixed—again. When he unlocked the front door and threw it open, he was greeted by the sweet smell of his mom's perfume and the scent of wax from the candles she burned all day long.
The living room was covered in a blanket of silence except for the faint hum of the washer in the backroom. A slant of light spilled from the kitchen doorway. He frowned as he wondered if he'd left the light on and how the washer was spinning. But his questions were answered when a shadow flickered across the tile flooring. He didn't need to look up to picture his mom's curly brown hair, her deep brown skin, and her small frame. Her bright smile could be felt across the room.
A smile of his own broke out on his face when he finally pulled his eyes from her shadow.
"Ren?"
He walked through the doorway. "Expecting anyone else?"
Margret Cornelli turned with a laugh. "Who? Mrs. Inkman across town? She never stops talking about how the winter frost is going to kill her tulips."
She sat the pot of noodles she was about to drain down.
Ren snorted. He was about to reply with a short joke about how the old woman wouldn't be around long to annoy her when he saw it.
The innocent envelope was sitting on the kitchen counter as if it had always meant to be there. His words caught in the middle of his throat. But when he expected his mom to bring it up, she simply continued with making dinner.
He grabbed the envelope. It was heavy. That was concerning.
His fingers toyed at the corners, debating if he should open it now—act as if nothing was out of the ordinary—or if he should hide it away in his room. He already looked suspicious now with his back turned to her. If she was paying any attention, she might already know that he was hiding something from her. She was intuitive like that.
But he was saved by the buzzing. It started at the center of his chest, traveling to his gums, and then to his stomach. His shoulders shook with the force. The letter dropped from his shaking hands and he grabbed the counter for balance.
"Do you—Ren?" A pan clattered, but he was already falling to the floor. He sagged, leaning his weight to the side. Hands wrapped around his arms, trying to hold him up. His feet felt like rubber and his eyes glossed over.
He didn't know how long it had lasted. This was the first time it had gone out of control.
She brushed his hair to the side. The soft touch reminded him of when he'd developed the need for blood. He'd grown sick as his fang grew in. Everything had been a sensory overload. The lights, slight noises, and even the beating of his own heart had set him off. That had lasted two days, but it might as well as been a decade. The pain had no sense of time.
That was how it felt now. He was free falling into an abyss of pain and darkness.
She murmured soft words against his cheek and ear. The soft rocking in her arms soothed him. He was able to climb out of the dark hole.
He opened his bleary eyes.
Her smile was tight lipped. "Have you eaten?"
"Yeah," he said. Too quick.
She laughed darkly. Tears were shimmering in her eyes. "I mean, have you taken—"
She could say it. Synthetic blood, medicine, that 'stuff'. She could say anything.
He didn't understand why her saying nothing made him feel more like shit.
Nothing made sense to him anymore.
His fingers were slowly getting their feeling again. She thought this was a normal feeding side affect. How wrong she was. He would make sure that was all she thought it was. This buzzing thing was his to deal with. Not hers.
"I can get it." He moved to sit up, but she pushed him down.
Her eyes betrayed her. She grimaced and pulled her hand back. "Sorry."
"It's fine." He got to his feet better than he'd expected. With his hand over his mouth, he slunk away.
The buzzing had pulled out his fangs. The carnal need to rip something apart was overwhelming. He needed to chase something, do anything, to get it out of his system.
The stairs creaked under his weight. He wasn't fast enough. He couldn't get away from her sad expression, even when he closed his bedroom door and locked it. There was no escaping the haunting in her eyes.
The aching seconds it took him to open his sock drawer and down one of the vials were a blur. He tried to not think about how fake the blood tasted. How the fuck was he supposed to know that? He'd never tasted real blood before.
It was as if his body was engineered to know the difference. It wouldn't be a surprise if it turned out to be another thing nature had played around with. He was one of thousands who'd been fucked over because some higher power wanted to experiment.
He tossed the vial into the waste basket by his desk.
He decided then, staring at that empty vial, that he was going to chase whatever the fuck his body wanted out in the forest. He would get it out of his system. If that's what it fucking wanted, then that was what it was going to fucking get.
Hopefully, that would be enough for it to calm down and not potentially make him go insane.
He fell face first into his bed. He beat the mattress until he got tired of it. Then, when his arms were limp at his waist, he laid in silence.
Sometime later, he'd managed to pull himself under the sheets. He heard the floor creak outside his door. The handle turned. Margret didn't try a second time.
He was in and out of it until he woke completely. The moon was shining right in his face. The buzzing had never truly left. It was claiming its space inside of him, resting beneath his skin as if he were a host. Maybe he was. Perhaps the reason why vampires existed was because they'd been taken over by a blood sucking parasite.
Ren laughed at himself. He clamored out of his bed, still fully dressed with his jacket and all. He snatched his switchblade from his desk and then he swung his legs out his window. The drop strained his ankles and knees. The pain made him clench his teeth and groan inwardly.
The forest called to him. The buzzing was getting louder. He glanced back at the tiny blue house. The window to Margret's bedroom felt like a million miles away. His own window didn't look like his own. For the first time in his life, the house he'd always called home, didn't feel like his. The forest was all he wanted.
And violence. Blood and wrath. He wanted to unleash it, kill and kill until he could not fill his stomach anymore.
The fear was all his, but it was laced with giddiness.
He turned his back to all he knew and plunged into the wilderness that would take his soul.
***
He was running as fast as his feet would carry him. He didn't have to think about school, his mom, or the future. It wasn't until he was running through the trees, dodging low hanging branches, and panting to catch his breath that he realized how twisted everything had become. For so long, he'd only cared about who he was going to be and about the monster lurking beneath his skin. Behind the mask, he knew he wasn't much different than the men like Mantel. Or his dad.
All those horrible thoughts faded to the background as he chased the moon. It was a beaming light that led him deeper into the unknown. It should have terrified him. Though he'd been out here before, that had been when he was in the daylight. The night held so much more out here. The animals were no longer afraid. Even his adjusting eyes wouldn't be much better against predators who hunted only at night.
All was silent, still, and he could hear his gasping breath. His eyes closed on their own. For a moment, he let them rest and then he slowly opened them. He walked deeper into the forest. Above the tree line, he could make out the mountains. They were radiant even at night. They felt as if they held more secrets than the entire universe. That sounded ludicrous even when he was battling against the buzzing that could not be explained.
He continued to walk forward, his eyes never leaving the mountain peak. The minutes went by. Time was beginning to mean nothing to him. He knew he'd been standing there for a while, but it seemed to have slipped him by. He stopped. He wished for something to happen. To make the ache inside of him stop.
And then he was thinking about what it would be like to be at the base of the mountain. To be that close, it would make him feel even more insignificant. He would feel like a speck on the ground. He imagined the air would be different. Sharper and fresher.
Crystal Mountain was special and everything surrounding it was touched by its magic without even knowing it.
The buzzing was consuming him.
No longer able to keep still, he pushed back branch after branch. His feet ached by the time he reached the outskirts of the mountain. He could really see it now. It towered over him, just as he'd expected it would. He prayed this feeling would end, yet, at the same time, he didn't want it to.
Because even when he was with his mom, he was lonely. She was human. She didn't understand anything about being a vampire. She didn't know how painful it was to be around her—when he was a reminder of what happened to her.
He was the reason why she was silently suffering in a home that was no longer a home.
The last tree passed him by. In front of him were rocks and boulders. And there it was. A giant mass of rock that reached high into the sky. The center of Montis and the center of him.
The buzzing hiccuped.
He'd enjoyed the view for all but a second when he heard it.
The loudest scream he'd ever heard.
Ren twisted the ring dangling from his neck. Each turn of the metal was time he could have used to run. The buzzing had settled at least. However, the bloodlust was boiling. His fangs and gums ached to pierce flesh and engorge gallons of red. He licked his lips, already tasting it on his tongue.
That scream…
He pulled himself from the hungry haze long enough to listen closely. There was nothing.
The hush of night came upon him. He did't notice how dead it was. No sound of birds, the humming of silence, or the usual rustle of life in the woods.
It truly felt as if he was alone in the world. And that scared him more. The scream had been close.
His hand grabbed the closest thing to him—the base of a tree. Bark bit into his palm.
He took a hesitant step forward. The world tilted around him, but somehow he managed to keep going. He didn't want to. The frightened voice in the back of his head wanted to go back. He wanted to forget all that had happened, all that he'd done in this sorry excuse for a life.
But he couldn't escape from the fate hurling toward him. His feet were moving faster and faster. The promise to keep calm, to not give in to the beast clinging to his insides, fell apart in front of him.
Washed away, that sacred piece of him vanished. No longer was he Ren Cornelli. He was just a vampire hunting.
He smelled it. High in the air, swirling around him as if it had been seeking him out. He stopped, raised his head, and breathed in. His fangs ached.
His entire body ached.
His hand grasped the ring around his neck. He rolled it between his fingers, waiting for the scream to come again. It didn't. The silence following after didn't ease his fear. His eyes flickered across the dark forest.
For a moment, he believed it to be a part of his imagination. But the thrumming through his body, the taste of blood in the air, and his body's natural reaction all proved it was anything but a figment of his imagination.
Each step forward set his body on fire. He felt a surge of energy flood his veins from the soft dirt below. The cold air whipped through his hair. His eyes stung from the tough wind, but his body was running on adrenaline. It didn't matter how bad the pain was.
There was no more screaming. There was nothing but the ear piercing silence that took over the entire forest. No one should be out here and no one should be screaming.
It was only a few minutes later that he broke through another clearing. The trees drifted behind him and as he slowed to a stop, he took one look at the scene and thought he was going to throw up.
A young girl's body lay in the meadow. Her legs twisted in an unnatural angle. Her arms were spread above her head. The skin around her neck looked as if it had been ripped out by a rabid animal. Blood pooled at the base of her head, streaming out along the dirt like small rivers searching for the sea. And above the girl's bloody body stood a man hunched over with blood dripping from his hands.
Ren's wide eyes met the man's. He couldn't move as he stared into the bright red eyes. They were swirling with hunger and though he'd just slaughtered that human girl, he was edging to a point Ren knew too well. The blood satisfied him, but he was on a high. He wanted more.
Ren stepped back. His fear fought against his own bloodlust. When his eyes flicked to the man's hands once more, he almost dropped to his knees. He wanted a taste. Of true human blood. He would lap until the blood coated his face and stained his hands.
Ren was wracked with horror at his own thoughts. He fumbled, startled, when he looked back at the man's red eyes.
He spun on his heels and ran.
The dirt kicked up onto the back of his legs and rocks bit into the thin soles of his shoes. The wet grass slowed his sprint, but he pushed his body to go harder than it could truly take. He was riding on the coats of his fear, flashing images of the nightmare he'd left behind only so he could escape it faster.
"Stop!"
The sound of the man's voice shocked Ren for only a second. He glanced over his shoulder. He knew it was a mistake. Even as he stared at the man's intense face, he knew Ren knew he wouldn't be able to out run him. There was only a short distance between him and Ren and it was only getting smaller.
Ren turned back and searched the forest floor. His feet dodged a fallen log and sticks jutting out from the ground. Each time he looked at the ground, he looked for something to use. A stick, a large rock, anything he could use as a weapon.
The girl's face flashed in his mind. The image of her lying there, lifeless, her stare as cold as the night made him want to break down. Yet, at the same time, he wanted to go back to her body and relish in the disgusting sight. He wished it could have been him that ripped her throat out and drank her blood. The man had wasted so much of it, playing in the filth, and that angered the buzzing inside of him.
He frantically ran, his arms flailing as he tried to keep steady on his feet. The forest was too dark for him to make out much of anything except for the large looming trees. They blocked the moonlight, the one source he desperately needed right then.
The man was gaining on him and though Ren was fast enough to keep ahead of him for this long, he could hear the man gaining on him. It was hard to hear, but Ren wasn't deaf. The earth rumbled under the man's heavy thuds. He was wearing black boots, ones that looked like they could crush a human skull.
Ren didn't know why he decided to torture himself with that kind of imagery. But it made it easier for him to endure the burning in his thighs.
He went without saying that he wasn't the best in gym class.
And then he saw what he'd been searching for. A large stick about the length of his leg and as thick as his wrist rested in the brush of a tree. He didn't have time to think before he jumped and grabbed the end of the stick and pulled it down. Leaves and small twigs rained down on his head, blinding him for a second. He twisted around with the stick in both hands. He swung it with all the strength he had.
The wind swooshed atop it and he felt it nick something but just barely.
It was knocked from his hands. The man grabbed his wrist and yanked him forward. He had nothing to protect himself and he knew he couldn't fight the man off with strength alone.
"Stop! I'm not—"
As he reached out to grab Ren's other hand, Ren snapped his jaws. His fangs sunk into the man's skin, piercing into his flesh. Blood filled Ren's mouth, sweet and otherworldly.
The buzzing rumbled and a growl that didn't sound like his own hummed in his chest. The blood didn't taste how he thought human blood would taste like. It wasn't bad. It was different and apparently the buzzing thought that different was just as good.
It was the best thing he'd ever tasted in his entire life. Synthetic blood tasted like dirt next to this.
Ren gasped, tearing his fangs from the man's arm. Ren took a quick breath and went down for more.
"Get the Hell off me!" The man hit him across the face with his fist. Ren latched onto his arm as hard as he could, but he realized what he was doing. The blood drained from his face and he felt the world spinning.
Pain bloomed where the man had hit him and he felt the man's blood rising to the back of his throat.