Chapter 5

Darrien's expression changed. He was deep in thought, eyes lowered to the floor with his brows drawn together. That face. It was the same one Mantel had worn in the forest. There was no connection. It didn't mean anything, but the twin looks sent Ren hurdling to last night.

He'd finally put it to the back of his mind and it was back again like it never left in the first place. She was at the forefront with her ripped neck and her horror-struck expression which would forever be frozen in time. Even when she was dead she was in pain, living in an endless nightmare. They should have called the police. They shouldn't have left her there to rot without her family knowing where she'd gone or what happened to her.

The worst of it all was the guilt of knowing her killer was still out there. 

He no longer cared how he looked. He didn't know why he wanted to put up a front in front of Darrien anyway. It wasn't like he cared what he thought about him.

Ren let out a groan as he buried his face in his hands. 

He was starting to understand where his mind was wandering. Darrien was attractive, but Ren had never actually wanted to be with someone. Not that that was what this was. Thinking someone was good looking didn't mean he wanted anything other than to oggle at them.

That's the one thing he never thought about and something he never thought he would. Life was hard enough without wishing he could share it with someone.

His attention was drawn back to Darrien. He leaned over Ren's desk. Ren waited for him to say something. 

His eyes unintentionally fell to Darrien's mouth and he hated himself all the more for it.

"Are you—" He was waiting for it. He didn't want it to be true. He didn't want to be right, but he already knew what Darrien was going to ask. It was frustrating. Maddening. "Are you a—"

Darrien pressed his lips into a hard thin line. The words didn't come out. He tried again, opened his mouth, and he closed it once more. Ren wanted to tell him to spit it out, to just get it over with so he didn't have to keep going through the pain. 

He'd never had anyone ask him outright. Everyone already knew what he was and he was surprised no one had filled this kid in. He was surprised that wasn't the first thing out of their mouths since that was the reason why they liked to stare at him all the time. 

And Darrien had to be messing with him. If he had been here before, it was quite fucking obvious that Ren was still a vampire. It wasn't something people usually forgot. 

People's phobia of him only got worse with age. He started to look like a grown vampire every passing day. He wasn't easily hidden anymore.

He glared at Darrien, pulling his hands away from his face. "Am I a vampire?"

Darrien flinched as if Ren hit him. Ren could see the fear turning in Darrien's eyes, the utter horror of finally seeing what Ren was. 

It hurt more than he thought it would. 

Darrien pressed his hands into the back of the metal seat. Ren watched him look around the room. He wasn't turning away. Ren was sure it was just the shock, that maybe it was physically painful for him to twist around and hide from him.

Or maybe he wasn't afraid. Maybe he was just disgusted he had to sit in front of a vampire for the rest of the school year. 

It wasn't a rule, but kids stuck to their seats. What you picked was what you got.

The second bell rung. They were saved from the dead conversation.

There was no reason for Ren to care if Darrien wanted to talk to him after this.

He let out a soft sigh. Darrien knew now. It was a relief he wouldn't be trying to talk to him anymore.

The room slowly raised in volume as kids took their seats and got ready to start class. He took a slow glance around before he settled his eyes down on his notebook.

The class went on with Mr. Kale going over the last section of their reading. He was glad they were almost done with the Human and Vampire War. They went over it every year and it was the same thing over and over. 

He didn't want to think about it more than he had to. His whole life seemed to consist of remembering the past and how the world was before he was born. He'd rather focus on the present and the future that would only be a little better because he wouldn't be there.

It was only a few weeks.

He hoped he could survive until then.

***

It was the second time he'd found himself sitting around the corner of the school with unimportant things on his mind. 

There might have been a reason for this, maybe a sign that he was too blind to see, but for now he believed it was just another thing he couldn't explain. 

The parking lot had mostly cleared out. No one really wanted to linger here more than they had to. Ren didn't either. He would have loved to ditch this place, but the deep seated fear kept him sitting at the back of the school until everyone had cleared out. It was irrational. Just a bit. He couldn't do a damn thing about it though. He wasn't going to change and he had to accept that. 

The cold was sharper than it was yesterday. It bit into his skin. His skin began to crack under the intense gust of wind. He was just thinking about his plan of attack when he got home—slathering lotion and oil on his knuckles—when Darrien walked over.

He was wringing his gloves in his hands, not with them on, but he was wearing his matching hat. It was pulled over his ears. It pushed his glasses further up on his nose. The lenses made his eyes look bigger than they already were. He looked like a cartoon character. The cold brought out the red in his cheeks and nose. His eyelashes fluttered across his rosy cheeks. 

Ren shouldn't stare, but it was hard not to when he looked like that.

He stopped a foot away from Ren, his shoes just in Ren's line of sight. 

Ren wasn't looking at his face anymore. His eyes were glued to the sidewalk where he was sitting. Through he loud thumping of his racing heart, he heard people talking on the other side of the parking lot. He tensed, waiting for someone to walk around the corner to join Darrien.

He was there. Ren really shouldn't be afraid of him. 

"I'm sorry."

Ren blinked. "You are?"

He couldn't accept his words as the truth. Darrien was strange. He was different than all the others in a way that made Ren feel safer and more scared being around him. He hadn't felt it at first when they'd collided in the parking lot, but he could feel it now with him so close. 

He was in his space, drifting toward Ren with small steps, like he was approaching an animal. In some way, that was true. 

Darrien sat on the sidewalk with his hands hanging between his legs. They spread wide enough that they were almost touching Ren's. Darrien was careful enough to not let it happen. They were closer than Ren would have liked, the warmth of Darrien's body too noticeable, hard to ignore, and he didn't want to move in case Darrien thought he was being rude. He sat, his legs crossed, as still as he could be while Darrien got into a comfortable position.

"I don't..." Darrien paused and covered his face with his hand. He was looking into the parking lot, somewhere off in the distance, maybe even off into space.

Ren looked out there, to see if there was something to look at, but the lot was empty.

"In Rexington, vampire don't exist. Well, they do, but no one ever says out right and vampires sure as heck don't mingle with us."

Us. They were only a few sentences in and he was already putting up a divide. Ren couldn't fault him for doing so. Every decision they made, every word they said, was a step toward a line that no one in the last hundred years wanted to cross. This line, where humans made it clear they didn't want any vampire blood crossing over, was the thing that kept Ren from living as a human and not a vampire. 

Sure, that need on his vampire side required the one thing that made human fear and despise, but if it were anything else it would be fine. If they only fed on goats, humans wouldn't be in such an uproar. Perhaps, it wasn't something he could discuss with his bias. Maybe he didn't understand much about vampires or humans to understand himself. 

He knew, however, that he wasn't a murderer. Blood, food, and water was what his body needed to function, but it wasn't a need that took over his clear thinking. At least, for now it didn't. They didn't need to know about the buzzing or the effects being around Mantel had on his body.

As far as he knew, sleep deprivation was the only thing making his mind go haywire.

Darrien fiddled with the button of his shirt. His hands—slim—and his fingers—nimble—were pale like the rest of his body. Ren moved closer. Darrien stiffened as Ren placed his hand next to his.

He didn't touch him. He didn't want to, but he wanted to see the difference. Darrien's skin was almost translucent while Ren's was a dark brown. 

He shouldn't have done it. He should have stood up, walked away, done anything other than stay there and compare skin tones.

Darrien pulled back with a cough.

Then, as if they'd been waiting to catch them both off guard, two guys turned the corner. Leading them was none other than the douchebag Regan. 

Three pairs of eyes fell on them. 

Ren froze. He had to fight the urge to turn and run to the safety of the forest. There was no way for him to escape them if he moved. He didn't know what they would do, but he had to trust himself in this one thing.

Hold your ground. Don't look scared. 

It was a lot easier to say than to do. They headed toward them and he wanted to look up, to face them, but his hands were shaking. He didn't know if he could do this. He didn't know if he could even breathe. But he was doing it somehow.

When he looked up, he immediately wished he hadn't. The leader of the group was Regan. He tossed his dirty blond hair out of his vibrant green eyes with the shake of his head. A sneer was permanently tattooed on his face. The two following him were Sam and Ollie, brunettes. 

Regan crossed his arms as they stopped just behind Darrien.

"What the fuck is going on?"

Darrien looked back. He didn't look bothered at all. "What's wrong?"

Regan actually sputtered. "I can't believe I even have to say it."

He nodded in Ren's direction. "Why are you hanging around this fuck?"

It wasn't the worst Ren had been called. The word was still a bullet through him. His cheeks burned with anger and embarrassment. His hands were metaphorically tied. He couldn't attack, not even with his words if he didn't want to make the situation worse.

Darrien turned and stood up. He was taller than all three, towering over them. Regan stared up at him, glaring so hard it looked like he might burn a hole through Darrien's face. But Darrien's face wasn't scared. He was chill, calm like a storm about to blow over, and Ren didn't know how he felt about that. Or how he should feel between the two storms happening at once.

"Back off, Regan," Darrien said. He looked back at Ren and then grabbed Regan by the arm. "Let's go."

Ren didn't know if it was for Ren's sake or for Darrien's, but Darrien didn't fight them. He didn't stick up for Ren or to what they were saying. 

Ren was fine with that. It made it a whole lot easier to forget any of it had happened.

They turned the corner, the four of them disappearing from his sight. Where he should have felt relieved he hadn't been ganged up on, he felt empty. For the first time, someone had made the gesture to be somewhat nice to him.

It felt unreal like a figment of his imagination. Perhaps it was. Maybe Darrien had wanted to know what being around a vampire was like. 

He could have been a side attraction and Darrien had been curious to know if the monster bites.

Ren hoped Darrien go this answer because he was tired of all the unwanted bullshit. 

***

Ren couldn't get Darrien off his mind as he walked the long trail home.

He wanted to push him from his thoughts, but his face and the strange way he burst into Ren's life wouldn't stop hovering above his head. It was like Mantel and the dead girl. They'd fallen into his lap without warning, a sharp contrast to the rest of his life, and now he was fumbling for a way to deal with it. Death, vampires, and a boy who was too nice to be anything but trouble. He couldn't begin to unravel his thoughts about the situation and he didn't think he would be until he'd slept the day away.

He was left wondering, though, about Darrien's words. He'd claimed vampires in Rexington basically didn't exist. Or rather they hid away from humans. Ren wanted to believe there was a good reason for that, that the vampires had chosen that life for themselves and hadn't been driven to isolation by humans.

It was hopeful of him and even selfish to protect himself from the true horrors of the world. But he knew a lot about evil and immorality. 

Darrien hadn't showed it, but he probably thought all vampires were killers. The look on his face in class had been a cover. Ren could see through it. He could see what Darrien really thought.

Killers.

Mantel's face, his hardened red eyes glowing and his lips pulled back in a snarl, flashed in Ren's head. Blood—the dead girl's blood—coated his arms like a fitted glove. It dripped down his fingers, spilling to the forest floor. Ren's breath hitched and he stopped in the middle of the path.

Mantel was there, looking right back at him.

He shook his head, fumbling for words, but nothing came out. He looked down at his feet and bit back a gasp.

The girl's hair flowed out in a fan arching over her head. She opened her eyes and she was looking right into his own. Her blood fell from her parted lips, from the large gash in her throat, and spilled into the river stretching out toward his feet.

He rubbed his eyes. His heart was pounding against his ribs. 

When he opened them, he saw nothing but the empty path leading to his house.

It was another sign that he needed to get home and sleep until the next day. He didn't know how he managed to stay up so far. Sleep had been trying to pull him into its black embrace since the moment he stepped inside the house this morning. Last night didn't even seem possible now that he'd stepped away from the scene and could analyze it. 

He hated what he'd done. He had left his mom alone in the house because of some strange force. But he couldn't beat himself up too much. He couldn't control the thing that was slowly taking over his body. 

He had no choice yet he still blamed his actions that followed after.

The murder of the young girl couldn't have been prevented on his own. He would have never of made it in time to see the attacker or to fight them off before they killed her. But the what-ifs were a dark cloud over his head.

He forced himself to continue walking though he didn't want to step any closer to where the mirage had appeared. 

Mantel had been standing right there and she had laid just in front of him. Ren could still see the blood and her soulless eyes looking up at him.

He stepped around the spot.

The trail faded from his sight and he followed the path without trying. The trees and fallen brush on the ground became a blur as he walked. He fell back into numb-like state. His thoughts were a jumble of senseless words. He imagined how warm his bed would be and how the pounding headache would be over once he woke up from his deep sleep.

It was all that came to mind, forcing the images of Mantel and the girl from his thoughts. He was thankful for it. Thankful he could have some peace before he would have to deal with what he'd seen for the rest of his life. 

The path faded into the clearing where his house stood. The blue looked bleak next to naked, dead trees, the forest just a massive downer compared to the warmth the house seemed to radiate.

He stepped onto the front porch.

A sense of relief and fear fell upon him. He was hesitant to unlock the front door for a reason he couldn't understand. The key felt heavy in his hand and there was a weighted presence pressed against him. 

It was faint like someone was standing right in front of him, but it was gone in the next second. He shook off the strange feeling. He unlocked the door and stepped inside. 

The front room was warm. Nothing looked out of place, but the strangeness took him aback. He shut and locked the door and ascended the stair to his room.

He brushed off the feeling once more. His bag fell to the floor in front of his bed. He landed on the mattress, curling into a ball. He didn't have the strength to take off his coat or to climb underneath the blankets. His eyes closed, heavy, like bricks were tied to them.

It felt so good to just lie there and he soon fell asleep.

But before the darkness could take him, he felt the presence again. Heavy on his chest, pressing into him like it wanted inside his soul.

***

He woke with a pounding headache. He'd never touched a drop of alcohol in his life, but if there was one thing to compare the pain to it would be a hangover.

His eyes crossed as he tried to focus on his surroundings, but it was a failed attempt. He sat up in his bed, still swearing his coat and clothes as well as his shoes, with no idea how he'd ended up there. There being his room and why he hadn't undressed. But the more he stared at the foot of his bed, the faster the memories started pouring in.

He couldn't believe he'd forgotten the dead girl, Mantel, and the weird occurrence with Darrien, a boy he wished he'd never met as much as he wished he'd never met Mantel or went to the forest. 

The room spun, tilting from one side to the other. He was off balance and he thought he might puke the emptiness right out of his growling stomach. He needed blood and he hated that he had to leave the comfort of his bed to do so. There was one side of him that wanted to fall back on his head and sleep how many hours he had left before he had to wake up. But he knew he would feel worse if he didn't answer the blood craving. 

He heaved himself off the bed. He blearily looked around the room. When his eyes stopped burning, he scrambled for the vials tucked away in his drawer. He hesitated, holding the glass vial at a distance. He continued to stare at it in the dark, unsure of what this feeling meant. He gave a sigh and finally gave in to the hunger calling to him. 

The glass was cool in his hand. He uncapped it.

He tossed it back, gulping it in one go. It gathered in the back of his throat. He swallowed it down with a burning thirst he didn't know had been there. His fangs throbbed. They wanted more, his entire being did, even though it didn't need more than this. It was always wanting for more than it needed.

Images of bloody necks flashed in his mind. He closed his eyes, sighing, and clutching hard onto his dresser drawer. He forced the thoughts away, trying harder than he usually had to to get a grip on his sanity. Everything was spinning. He didn't know how long it took him to get back to the surface, but when he opened his eyes, the moon was shining through his window.

He threw the empty vial into the metal trashcan beside his desk. He turned to the moon and stared.

The taste of copper was heavy on his tongue.

A hot bath. He hadn't had one of those for a long time.

Like a walking corpse, he waddled to the bathroom. He kneeled at the edge of the tub and turned the hot water knob until he couldn't anymore. After plugging the tub, he stripped from his clothes.

The steam wafted from the water. It filled the room from corner to corner. His eyes could barely see through it and his lungs ached for cold fresh air. He dipped his foot into the water.

The pain rippled from his toes, but he held his ground.

This was what he needed. He needed to burn the memories from his skin. Her blood was still on him. The girl's lifeless face was there, moving in the water, coming out from the steam, and reaching for him. He closed his eyes.

There was nothing there. It was safe.

The water burned his skin. His skin turned bright red from where the water touched him. His back pressed against the back of the tub and he leaned his head on the wall. The steam blurred his vision. Or maybe it was tears. He couldn't tell.

His thoughts became mere letters fading in and out of the steam. The words were jumbled and he made no effort to unscramble them.

He was numb to the pain. The minutes passed. There was a wonder at the back of his mind, pushed back by the endless blurred thoughts and worries that plagued him. He wondered if it meant anything. This life, who he was. It scared him how disposable he was. And this feeling wasn't new in a way. It had been there for a while though he couldn't pinpoint the exact date.

His eyes closed.

The water stilled around him.

Darkness crept in at the edges of his mind. The dull stars danced across the dark horizon behind his eyelids. They burned. The nap hadn't been enough. 

The water pulled him down. He was weightless in the water. Strands of thoughts came and went. They were meaningless.

It was the kind of calm and peaceful he needed, but it sharply ended when he pictured Darrien, red eyes, and blood.

He gasped, jerking out of the water. 

But when he opened his eyes, he was no longer in the bathroom. He felt moist and cold soil beneath his hands. It was dark and the trees circled around him. They were evenly spaced and bent toward the center of the open forest floor.

The cold soil between his spread fingers felt like a faraway dream. His body shook from the cold, but he didn't feel the temperature as he should. It was an echo of what it should have been. The pinpricks trailing up his arms and along his back didn't feel right nor did they feel as painful as he thought they should.

The trees swayed inward, their trunks contorting as the wind pulled them into the invisible void. 

He turned around, craning his neck up to get a better view of them. He tried to get up, but he was pushed back down by a firm hand. The hand was cold against his naked skin. He froze there, eyes locked on the tree line. 

He held his breath.

The hand tightened its cold grip.

A loud moan came from above. A scream echoed in the distance. Someone was running circles around him, but he saw nothing.

The forest began to fade to black. He jerked away from the hand, finally broken by the spell holding him hostage. The owner of the hand faded into darkness just as he tried to get a look at them.

The scene changed. He was still in the forest. It was still dark and cold. The damp forest floor squished beneath his bare feet.

He breathed, not daring to speak.

There was a large tree—double the width of his body—at the center of the clearing. He looked around, stepping cautiously forward. Twigs broke beneath his feet. His soles were sore and each step he took he felt rocks and twigs pushing into his skin.

The pain didn't faze him.

He placed his hand on the bark. Vines twisted their way up the dark trunk. Green moss sat at the base. The bark was wet, soft in a way, and when he pressed his palm to it, he swore he could feel soft rumbling coming from inside.

A thump came from the other side. From inside the tree.

He stumbled back, yanking his hand away. The tree turned. It ripped its roots from the soft soil. 

He fell to his back. There was no face, but the open holes in its trunk reminded him of staring eyes.

The cavities oozed with sap.

A low growl came from it. It sounded like words.

He was frozen, too shocked to fully comprehend the scene playing out before him or to think clearly. Somewhere, he knew he should turn and run, but his heart has completely stopped. 

He stared up at the towering tree as it broke its branches trying to reach for him.

The growls morphed into a demonic language. 

Other voices joined in. 

He looked frantically around. The trees had all turned into this monster with oozing eyes and broken limbs. They stumbled over one another to get to him.

He couldn't breathe. When he looked down, he was covered in sap leaking from their eyes. It was like water, but it clung to his skin and pulled him down to the ground. The roots of the trees ran through the sap and grabbed a hold of his arms and legs. They kept him locked to the ground as he sunk further down.

He screamed out once. The sap entered his lungs. He was on fire when it reached his eyes.

The last thing he saw was the shadows of the trees.