* Trigger Warning - Death *

Relief washed over me when he entered the room.

Slumping against the settee, I gestured to the walk-in wardrobe. "He's in there."

Johnathan lowered his axe. When he noticed the blood weeping through the bandage across my hand, his eyes trailed the length of me. "Are you okay?"

I nodded, taking in Johnathan's unkempt hair and the rip in the back of his shirt. "What happened? Is Amelia okay?" Blood glistened on his neck, proving he had recently been bitten.

His steps faltered, loosening his collar that rubbed against the sticky substance coating the side of his neck. "It's a hell of a long story. Don't want to bore you with the details. All you need to know is Amelia is fine."

He proceeded to check on Ethan, and after exchanging several words, he came back. "We all need to leave before the institute turns into a blood bath."

My heart skipped a beat at my unravelling plan. "We can't leave. Edwina is on her way, and she knows where my dad is." She showed me a vision, proving she knew more than what she let on. Getting the polaroid photograph from within the waistband of my leggings, I had evidence that could potentially save Samuel's life. "Samuel still cares about her, but I need to make her see that."

Having seen Samuel's memories as visions, Edwina was a lot harder to decipher with two hundred and seventy-two years of resentment.

"You'll vanish and die if you stay here. Is that what you want?" He placed the axe on the desk. "Do you think your dad put you in my care for you to become a vampire? The thing that he loathes the most." Swiping the papers off the table with his fist, he hunched over, chest rising in rapid succession with each breath. "Radella told me, and I had my suspicions about the vampire blood, but I didn't think you could be so stupid."

Taken aback by Johnathan's words and anger towards me, my stare bore into him. "Please, Johnathan, do tell me how you really feel. It's not like you're my dad or anything."

Puffing his flushed cheeks, Johnathan rubbed his fingertips across his temple.

"Can you give us a minute?" Ethan was kneeling in the doorway, sweat dripping from his straggly hair.

Johnathan cleared his throat, removing the blood from his neck with a tissue. He loitered across the room, packing weapons and filling a disposable cup with water from the tank.

Ethan lowered his head, sniffling. Tears stained his cheeks. "I have to tell you something," he spoke in a suffocated whisper. "I know we haven't known each other for long, but every minute of knowing you have been a gift."

Unable to speak from the lump gathering in my throat, I tore my eyes away.

"I wish I could touch your cheek and tell you everything will be alright, but I can't. But I want you to know that you can get through anything because you're the most determined girl I've met." Ethan coughed. His coughs became harsh and continuous as blood seeped from the corners of his mouth, splattering his shirt.

My breath hitched in my throat, and a stab of what was to come lingered in the air. I closed the distance between us, weighing my intentions with an overwhelming desire to give in.

Unscrewing the lid, I pushed the opening to his mouth, prying it open and tilted the contents for him to swallow.

Johnathan's voice was in the distance, a humming noise that filtered through one ear and out the other.

Ethan's eyes flickered like a candle, diminishing until the candle had been blown out, leaving me in complete darkness. He laid motionless. His fever vanished, and his complexion turned a pearl grey. Various blood vessels wiggled under his exposed skin.

My blood hadn't worked.

I don't know what hurts the most. The fact he is gone, or not being able to touch him for the last time.

Pressing my head to his chest, I breathed in his smell and held onto a glimmer of hope that I would sense his chest rise. Johnathan's words were indistinguishable from the frantic beating of my heart. I closed my eyes and succumbed to exhaustion as it ate away at me.

"Erika?" Johnathan placed his hand on my shoulder tenderly as if I was fragile and about to break, testing the waters. "We should go."

I laid for a minute or two on his chest before opening my eyes. When I looked at Ethan's lifeless body, a pang resided in my heart.

Helping me stand, Johnathan moved Ethan's body to the settee and covered him with a blanket.

"I thought it would work." My voice was thick and unsettling.

"We both did," he replied, giving me a forced lopsided smile.

A flare of raging fire extended across my back and shoulder blades, sending me into a spasm on the ground. A magical force pulled me under. Blackness enveloped my vision, capturing me in Akrsna's solitude.

Johnathan's voice was distant in the background as a black mass stretched its way across the kitchen walls, bouncing to break free from its restraints. Its material was stretchy and resilient as Arksna attached his pores to all four corners of the room, hauling himself across the hallway.

He glided across the streets of Shadowbrook, tendrils extended in each direction as if they evaporated towards the sky, leaving black mist in his wake. He wasn't afraid of the sunlight, and even if he was, he didn't show it.

I gasped and exhaled murky grime, dispersing into the air.

Akrsna is on his way to the institute.

A/N

Word Count: 948

Ethan died, but why do you think Erika's blood didn't help him complete his transition?

Have a fangtastic day!

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