Casa del John

The Order revealed levels of sadism I never thought it was capable of reaching. They fed me for a week and kept me hydrated every day after that. The first time a guard slid a tray of food at me, I raised an eyebrow at him. “What’s this?” I asked.

He grinned while locking the door again. “It’s breakfast,” he said. He swung the key ring around his finger a couple of times, then turned his back on me and Lydia, leaving us to our fate again.

I looked at my sister and frowned. “This is incredibly fucked up.”

“Eat,” she murmured, her eyes still closed from sleeping. “Keep up your strength. I’ve you’re going to help feed me, you might need it.”

Nodding, I sighed and polished off the food, slipping the empty tray through the bars of our cell for the guard to pick up later. The process continued for lunch, dinner, and breakfast the next day. Three days in, I shook my head at the tray and called after the guard. “So, let me get this straight,” I said. “You’ll stick me in a fucking cell and condemn me to die, but you won’t be the one to kill me.”

The guard sneered. I lifted my chin in defiance. “You know what that makes you? A fucking coward, that’s what.”

“John…”

I ignored Lydia while the son of a bitch on the other side of the bars took a few steps closer. We stared at each other, locked in a stalemate until he smirked and laughed at me. I watched him turn and chuckle the entire way to the elevators. I issued the only protest I could at the time.

Lifting my tray, I threw it, food and all, through the bars and watched it land on the other side. It made a mess all over the concrete floor. I was rewarded a few hours later when they set off the sprinklers and soaked Lydia and I to the bone. It washed away the remnant, but I shivered for the rest of the night and wasn’t given dinner.

The meals continued the next day and stopped altogether on day seven. From there, only a cup of water every few hours found its way into the cell. I frowned when it happened and didn’t bother shouting at the guard. I knew what this symbolized. They wanted it to end and wanted me too weak to fight Lydia off when she lost her senses.

Although, my sister held on beyond that point. I started sitting as far away from her as possible and while I slept a lot during the first week, I only rested for the remainder of the time when I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. Lydia began eyeing me hungrily on day eight, but she dug her nails into the floor and shut her eyes when the temptation became too much. On the ninth day, I woke with a start to the sound of her whimpering. Her fangs ran down and her eyes clenched shut. Hands over her ears, she had her knees bent close to her chest and rocked back and forth. 

I frowned, feeling faint, tired, dirty, and anxious. I didn’t want to wait any longer. “Lyd,” I said in a soft tone of voice. “Just do it. It’s going to happen soon anyway. Let’s get it over with.”

She shook her head emphatically and pressed her hands against the sides of her head as though trying to crush her own skull. I held my knees, sitting on the ground, staring at her and not able to sleep at all. As the sun rose on the tenth day, I figured I was down to hours now, not days. She couldn’t fight her instincts. She was already weak and while she passed out when the sun rose, I knew when she woke, it would come back in all its sound and fury. Slumping to the ground, I did something I rarely ever did. I cried until I finally gave in to sheer exhaustion.

A strange sound woke me up a few hours later. I lifted my head to see Lydia still passed out and raised an eyebrow. Sitting up, I looked around until I saw a figure in the darkness, headed right for us. He was armed, much more heavily than the guard usually was, and held a sheathed sword in his hands. My first thought actually came as a relief to me. Somebody was coming to put us out of our misery.

My opinion changed, though, when I saw who it was. Ben, the master seer who had been my instructor, whom I had started trusting and figured, with Lydia, had sold us out when he assigned us our second mission. I remembered a conversation from a few days before where we assumed he wasn’t any better than the elders on the High Council. “Ben?” I asked, squinting at him.

Coming to my feet made me dizzy. I held onto the wall and righted myself before my knees could give out. He watched me, frowning. “I’m sorry, John. I’m so sorry. I should have come a few days sooner,” he said.

I raised an eyebrow. “What the fuck are you doing here anyway? You could get in trouble for…”

“There isn’t a lot of time to explain.” He passed me the sword and lowered a bag slung across his back onto the floor.

I looked at the sword and furrowed my brow. “This is mine.”

“Yes, you might need it.” He crouched in front of the bag and opened it.

I heard Lydia stirring in the background. My heart began to race. I shook my head. “I’m not going to off my sister, Ben. I’m sorry, but if that’s why you’re…”

“No, I’m here to rescue both of you.” He sighed, pulling two pints of blood from the bag and a set of keys. “The sword is for upstairs.”

Ben walked to the door and slid a key into the lock. I held the weapon with both hands and blinked. “What’s going on upstairs?”

“A distraction.” The door swung open. He looked toward Lydia and frowned, shaking his head. “When I saw they weren’t letting up after a week, I gathered the troops and we planned an uprising. Was easy to do, actually.” He looked up at me. “A lot of folks were pissed at the Council for doing this.”

“Really?” I perked an eyebrow and drifted closer to his side as Lydia started to wake. She groaned and I frowned. “She’s starving, Ben.”

“Yes, and we need to make sure we get this blood in her and not either of ours.” He stepped closer and looked around. “Damn cell. If I thought we could carry her out of it without her lashing out, I’d do it. Neither of us can use our powers here.”

I watched Lydia. She drew her knees close to her chest again and covered her ears. “She’s not going to attack us. Not yet. I don’t know if she could have survived another night, though, without losing it.” I held out a hand. “Give me one of those and get the other one ready. I’ll help her. Just as long as she has the blood to focus on maybe she’ll ignore us.”

“We can hope.” He sighed and walked with me closer to my sister. We both crouched down beside her. While I opened one of the pints, he opened the other and looked toward the corridor. “I don’t know how much longer we have, so let’s make this quick.”

I nodded. Touching Lydia’s shoulder, I whispered, “Lyd… C’mon, sis. We have something for you.”

She shook her head and kept her eyes clenched shut. I frowned and Ben smirked. “She’s stubborn, I’ll give her that,” he said. “Good for your sake.”

“Yeah.” I brought the pint of blood closer to her mouth. “Come on, Lyd. Drink this, damn it. We need to get the fuck out of Dodge.” When she still refused, I tipped the plastic bag and let a trickle of blood run onto her lips. She licked them and her eyes shot open. The response was immediate.

Lydia grabbed the bag from me and began drinking it down like she’d just walked through the Sahara and finally found an oasis. I held out my hand for the other pint and gave it to Lydia the moment she finished with the first one. Her fangs ran down while she drank from the second bag and when she finished, she shivered and looked at us, a flicker of deep-seated hunger flashing past her eyes. I shook my head. “Come on, Lyd. We’ll get you something more, but we gotta get out of here first.”

She stared at me. I didn’t know if she understood, but then she nodded and slowly came to her feet. I motioned to help her, but she shook her head. “No,” she managed and I didn’t bother complaining. Instead, I picked up my sword and followed Ben out into the corridor.

Adrenaline raced through my veins. The elevator door shut and Ben glanced at both of us before looking directly at me. “I know you’re probably weak, too, but you’re going to have to dig deep. We need to get you the hell out of here fast.”

I nodded. The doors opened and while the hallway we stepped into seemed quiet, a little further down, I could hear screaming and what sounded like mass chaos. Ben started running toward the source of the sound and Lydia and I followed as quickly as we could manage in our weakened conditions. The moment we rounded a corner, I saw it for myself. All the rank-and-file, the people who patted us on our backs when we returned from our missions, were fighting with the elders and the people who sided with the Council. I swallowed hard and continued onward, drawing my sword and readying myself for a battle. Ben drew one of his weapons and told Lydia to stay close. Then we dashed into the fray like a bat out of hell.

I deflected a few shots directed our way. Ben shouted for our supporters to clear a way and they pushed back our enemies, giving us a chance to break through. We dashed further down the corridor and even Lydia seemed to be regaining some strength or finding a well to draw from while we passed by the offices of the High Council.

But I stopped by one door in particular – one room with a light on and what looked like a locked door protecting the person on the other side. I scowled and whistled Ben and Lydia’s way.

They stopped and looked at me.

My eyes settled on my sister. “I think there’s one thing we need to do before we leave,” I said.

Ben frowned. “John, we have a car waiting. The sun just set. You need to…”

“I know.” I glanced at Ben, then looked back at Lydia and nodded. “Come on, sis. I doubt this will take long.”

Lydia glanced at the door and she scowled. She advanced forward while Ben remained standing in place. “I’m not going to be able to talk you guys out of this, am I?”

“It’s for the natural order,” I responded. My eyes shifted to the door. “God only knows this asshole’s been fucking it up enough lately.”

Ben sighed. He started walking backward. “I’m not going to stop you, but I’m not going to help you with this either. I’ll be waiting outside. Right out the front doors, I have a car waiting. You’re going to have to make it there by yourselves if you do this, though.”

I nodded, looking at Ben with the most solemn expression I’ve probably ever worn on my face before. “We’ll be there. Two minutes.”

“One and a half,” Ben said. Then he turned and started running again.

Lydia and I looked at each other. She turned her attention to the door and we both drew in a deep breath. “So, telekinesis, or do we kick the fucking thing in together?”

I saw her grinning from the corner of my eye. “Let’s try kicking it in first. Then we’ll go to Plan B.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself.” We nodded in unison and counted to three. With the last number, we both raised our feet and kicked the door as hard as we both could manage. The wood splintered from the lock and the door wobbled open, but we didn’t waste any time entering the office.

When we turned our heads, we saw Wallace Alexander cowering behind his chair, looking at us with panicked eyes. “No,” he said. “No, you don’t want to do this. You don’t…”

I raised my hand and shut him up, opening my fingers and clamping them shut in a gesture that evoked my psychic powers and forced his mouth closed. My green eyes blazing, I turned my hand, palm facing upward, and lifted it, watching Wallace levitate off the ground a few inches. He issued a muffled scream and I grinned. Then I whipped my hand to the side and watched him fly.

He sailed over his desk and tumbled onto the ground. Lydia and I walked over to him and smirked as we looked at him. “Do the honors, sis,” I said.

I passed my sword to Lydia. She took it in both hands and lifted it while I used my powers to hold Wallace in place. It was a shame, really. All that blood she probably could have used, but we knew better than to risk him having some sort of spell protecting him. Besides… the part of me that knew I’d be a vampire soon took a little pleasure out of seeing Lydia swing the sword down and end the bastard in one blow.

She passed me my weapon. I flicked the blood from it, then slid it into its sheath and nodded. “Do we have time to fetch a few things from our room?” I asked.

She nodded. “If we make it quick.”

“Then, let’s make it quick.”

We ran for the corridor and charged as fast as possible for the dormitories, each of us splitting up to run into our respective rooms and grab whatever our hands could carry. I threw everything I could find in a bag and slung it over my shoulder before picking up my guitar and running for the hallway. Lydia met up with me a few seconds later and the commotion on the other side of the large complex gave us more than enough time to dash out the front doors and into the car waiting for us.

Ben drove us to the airport, where I had left my Mustang and wished us well. I didn’t bother to ask what kind of shit he’d be in for saving us because I was too dead set on getting us out of there.

***

Now, however, I stared at the road ahead and hoped to God nobody punished him for doing the right thing.

My eyes rose to my GPS as the traffic began to clear. “Portland,” I said as Lydia hung up my phone and opened the glove compartment again. “Let’s stop in Portland, find some place to shower. Buy a change of clothes, some shit like that, and you can get something else to eat.”

I glanced at Lydia. She nodded and smiled at me. “Sounds good, little britches.” She looked away and breathed in deep. “Probably going to have to spend the day somewhere, too.”

“We’ll see how fast your lead-footed brother can get us into California. I don’t plan on making any other stops if I can help it.”

“Not going to argue with that.”

We exchanged one last grin and broke free from the traffic, my foot pressing hard on the accelerator and the Mustang’s engine springing to life as we gained speed and barreled toward Oregon. Whatever we were leaving behind, I prayed for it to stay there and for us to make it to San Francisco safe and sound. We nearly died twice, and miraculously she and I lived to see the other side. While I knew being a seer would always bring some danger with it, I knew exactly what was going to happen when we reached California.

I was going to sleep and then ask Victor to finally make good on turning me. Because after all that, I didn’t want to take any chances. Staying mortal was overrated.