Johnathan rapped on the door with his knuckles. "Open up." He had dragged Samuel's stationary body from the car and up the path, careful of the arrow poking from his abdomen.

I rang the doorbell frantically until the various bolts slid across. Amelia's head popped round, focused on the body in Johnathan's arms and stepped aside.

"What happened?" Fiona rushed from the kitchen wearing an apron. She did a double-take, leaning to one side. "Where's Ethan?"

In a blind panic, I dropped Johnathan's briefcase and held on to the railings. "Wait. Ethan's not here?"

Fiona watched Amelia help Johnathan carry Samuel into the living room and untied her 'Queen of the Kitchen' apron from around her waist. "Where's Ethan, Erika?"

We are idiots for trusting Samuel with his body. Now we may never know where Ethan is all because I impaled him. Will he tell us if I take out the arrow myself?

I closed my eyes, resting against the staircase. "He had vampire blood in his system and..." My voice trailed off, indicating the worst.

How can I tell her that her son will become a vampire?

As I opened my eyes, Fiona remained motionless, staring at me. It was like her mind took a second longer to process my words and the implication behind them.

Shaking her head, she said, "Please don't tell me what I think you're saying."

Unable to maintain eye contact, I glanced at Johnathan rubbing the dirt off his face with his vest.

"I assumed he would bring him here. I'm so sorry." My lip quivered at the chaos I caused as tears glistened my vision. I couldn't face Fiona and see disappointment reflected in her eyes. 

A thud echoed through the hallway, coming from the entrance. "Good old Samuel, always looking out for himself." Radella raised her palm towards us and kicked at the invisible threshold. "Can you invite me in? I'm a friend of theirs."

Suppressing a snigger at her loose term because a friend wouldn't put somebody else's life in danger.

"I have a strict 'no vampire' house rule," Fiona replied, dazed and lost in thought. "I didn't want him to have this life." Massaging her temples with her fingertips, she muttered something under her breath.

"What's the plan because he won't stay down for long?" Johnathan tied Samuel to a chair with rope. "When he wakes up, he'll be mad."

We know who he will direct his anger towards.

"Can somebody please fill me in on what's going on?" Amelia hesitated in the doorway, glaring at Radella. "Who are you?"

Radella lifted up her sleeve, showing off the tattoo on her wrist. "As I said, I'm one of the gooduns."

If Radella wants an alliance, why did they start the fight at the graveyard? Was this merely a threat to get Samuel on side?

Trailing into the kitchen, I grabbed a beaker and turned on the faucet. The window had been fixed with plywood—it was a makeshift effort until the glass could be replaced.

The coolness of the water hit the back of my parched throat, soothing the sides of my mouth. A bowl of icy water sat on the quartz countertop with my dad's finger wrapped in an airtight plastic bag, keeping it fresh.

Spitting out the contents, I erupted in a fit of coughs and reached for the golden wedding ring left beside the bowl.

How can a piece of metal mean so much?

It symbolised love, promise and eternity, but nothing lasted forever. Only the material itself and not the person.

Smoky wisps of air hovered in the room, crawling along the floor and twisted around the table legs. I ran for the door. The mist predicated my movements and slammed the door shut, leaving me alone without any way to escape. In a feeble attempt, I yanked the knob. 

I didn't need to turn around to know who was in the room with me. She had that ghostly presence oozing from her, bringing a frosty chill to the air.

"Go away," I yelled without glancing behind.

Edwina's static, inhuman voice cut through the mist. "We are more alike than you would believe."

"I'm nothing like you." I rotated my dad's ring in my hand and slid it on my thumb. It was too loose to fit on the other fingers.

"That's where you're wrong." Her dainty steps loitered the kitchen, coming to a halt. "Turn around."

Sucking in a deep breath, I followed her orders and faced her. She morphed herself, copying my identity once again. It was like staring at an outdated version of myself. An edition I vaguely knew, but I had no understanding of why. 

"I know more about you than you think," she said. "Do you know how maternal ancestry works, Erika?"

Studying Edwina closely, I saw my perplexed reflection in her amber eyes. We shared the same upturned nose, full lips, and even the facial moles on her cheeks and on the side of her neck were identical.

Does she know something I don't?

Edwina glided across the tiled floor, circling me. "You see, I was like you—naive, pretty. I had dreams and aspirations, but I fell in love with a vampire. That was my biggest mistake. Like you, I trusted them."

"I won't make the same mistakes you did," I said. "I'm not you."

"Maybe so, but we share the same bloodline." Edwina stopped, looking me squarely in the eyes. "Do you not find it strange that we share a deep connection on a spiritual level? Or how I can tap into your world and drag you into mine? I'm your maternal ancestor, a distant relative."

I couldn't move. "How is that possible?"

"Tabitha and Ida, my sisters, both had children. Their children had children, and the list goes on. There has been a link from your biological mother to her mother and her mother's mother for centuries."

As I wrapped my head around the logistics, there was a piece of the puzzle missing. My mother didn't know about Shadowbrook because Dad made sure she wasn't dragged into the middle. Bringing somebody from the outside world into a life where vampires existed was a cause for a disaster.

She lifted her palm in midair, snapping me from my thoughts. "We are two halves of the same person."

Is this her version of a twisted fantasy?

Reaching towards her, I needed to touch her myself. It could be a hallucination, a trick of the mind. There still wasn't an explanation as to why we looked identical.

As I extended my fingers, our palms touched. A sense of familiarity and warmth spread through my fingertips. Inclining her head to the side, she reeled back and pulled off the ring with ease.

"Give that back," I said, jerking towards her.

Edwina inspected the wedding band, hissing from the contact and dropped it. A metallic ring bounced on the floor, no longer visible under the levitating clouds of vapour.

Getting on my hands and knees, I crawled through the mist as my determination powered me throughout.

A force of energy coiled around my legs and dragged me backwards, scratching at the tiled surface with my nails. "You met Alani, I see," she said, flipping me onto my back. "Akrsna talks highly of her."

I winced as the coldness of the floor seeped through my t-shirt, comforting the constant dull ache within my shoulder blades and lower back. "I want to trade a life for a life."

Edwina's expression was vacant, and her lips slightly apart, lip-syncing a string of words. "We're listening."

Of course, Akrsna is here, watching with prying eyes like CCTV.

"Samuel's life for Ethan's." I despised myself for having Samuel's life at my disposal, but he was immortal and had lived a long life. He also didn't care about me. If he could, he would throw me under the bus to save his grandson.

He was once a human, too.

Silencing my conscience, I outweighed the reasons why this was the right choice. Ethan had saved my life, and I owed it to him. A part of me wanted to see him again—needed to see him.

Edwina flexed her burnt and blistering fingers. She had an allergic reaction to the metal and wasn't healing. "No."

Stung by their rejection, I squirmed under the weight of their invisible force. "Why not? I delivered a vampire, and your least favourite one, too."

"Your offer is tempting, but the boy is in transition. Until he completes the transition period, he isn't a downworlder," Edwina replied, licking her swollen fingers. "The boy is as good as useless because he will die if he doesn't feed." 

"It doesn't matter if Ethan completes the transition or not because Samuel is already dead-ish, right?" I said, clinging on to every last bit of hope I had left within me.

"Wrong." Edwina was quick to judge, offering an explanation. "The boy needs to stay human for me to undo his transition. If he turns, then he will be a vampire, and it won't work."

Revolted from her animalistic tendencies as she licked each finger, I swallowed the rising vomit. "So, you're saying I have a time limit? I need to stop him from transitioning."

"Exactly, but first, Akrsna will give you your gift." She placed her wet fingertips on my temple, gathering her weight on top of me. "Open your mind to me, and he shall deliver."

Deliver what?

Swirls of inky-black matter stretched their way into the corners of my canthus as the darkness engulfed my vision.

A/N

Word Count: 1,603

What gift do you think Akrsna has in mind for Erika?

Was Erika right to trade Samuel's life for Ethan's, or is that disrespectful?

Have a fangtastic day!

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