Dark Destinies- Clare Siobhan (Fanfiction) Magical Generation

Chapter 18- Petals

Warning: Blood and violence.

***

The moon twinkles back at the girl as the gem on her chest gleams back in fear of who bears it. Ryder's blaring red eyes match the jewellery's light reflections as the bangs from downstairs bangs again. Whipping her head around, her lips tug into a smile as she grips the window's railing, pushing herself to her feet.

The young vampire begins to unwrinkle her dress as she makes her way across the bedroom, but as her eyes come to the canvas, her feet stop a moment. Blankly, unfluttering eyes stare at the dripping blood as it spreads on the ground, in a growing, tainting puddle. The painting is now unrecognisable

It's all red.

The cold marble ground slides against her feet as she continues her way to the door, taking light feathery steps down the circular staircase of her tall tower. The cold bite of the stone tingles her toes as her quiet movements take her closer to the sound of the entrance door. Hiding in the shadows, the hallway's torches light up the opening in a honey blaze. She watches as Cody's shaken and elderly appearance creeps in as he kisses and greets his wife. The age in his expression is visible, not just in his body and face. When the two lock eyes, she notices it's also deep in his soul. 

"Papa!" Ryder exclaims, emerging from the darkness. Falling into his open embrace, his familiar smell of dirt and musk swarms her in a familiar trance. He pulls her close to his chest as they press into each other, her smaller head resting on his wide shoulder. Hearing him grunt, she lifts herself slightly, knowing the pain in his stiff joints unwilling to return the youth he was robbed of. 

In the world of vampires where time loses meaning, it feels like decades since the two had last seen one another. Years feel like minutes; centuries decades; eternity a lifetime. 

Time serves no purpose to the living dead.

"Ryder, my girl!" Cody conveys through a thin stretched smile, dripping with hope. "You look beautiful," he adds as he takes her by the hand, she pulls back from the hug immediately and follows his twirl, bending her head slightly as his frail arm struggles to lift it high enough.

"It's the same one as last year, Papa,"

"I know that. Yet you still wear it beautifully," he smiles, but his pupils expand alarmingly for a moment, eating away at the white in his eyes. "What is this smell of blood?"

"Ryder had an accident with her last meal," Arya declares. The hint of displeasure unable to hide itself in her thick accent. Pale fingers tap against her crossed arms, but her husband frees himself of his daughter to grasp Arya, feeling her up from the embroidered black silk to her cold white skin. His own pulse is weak, pushing to stay awake while hers had died long ago along with her mortality. 

Is it not a fair exchange? A beating heart for eternal life?

"No matter! The blood haul I went for this time is plenty to last months. It seems a lot of people died recently," he announces proudly.

"What people?" Arya asks with distaste.

"I heard there was a schoolbus accident. Leaving that to waste would be... well, a waste," Cody grins widely as if having achieved the conclusion of an experiment. Watching as he drags in the evidence, Arya eyes him quietly, seeing how the man's scientific mind had never changed even after all these years. 

Blood is blood; the dead are dead; and the convenience is free. As long as the experiment doesn't hurt anyone, what stops him?

Choosing the life of a vamipre robs you of choices, not that it was a choice to begin with.