Blood Secrets

CHAPTER 17

BEFORE

ANDY

I look out of the kitchen window anxiously peering up at the rain slamming against the cabin with such a force that every other second, I get a horrible feeling the cabins going to collapse on itself. The warm mug comforts my ice cold hands and the hot moisture warms my face as I take a sip of the bitter, tasteless warm liquid.

Damn, why are they taking so long?!

8:15am

Great. They've only been gone a half hour yet I'm panicking like they've been years. I pour my pathetic attempt at hot chocolate down the sink and slam the mug down which seems to make the rain more pissed off than it already was.

I drag myself upstairs into Emma's room to distract myself for the next few hours they'll be outside training. I go straight to her bed and take out Valerie's diary from under the pillow. I run my fingers over the rough edges of the worn pages and imagine Emma doing the same every night, considering whether to read the truth about her mother or not. Faced with the potential end of the idyllic image she still holds over Valerie, the mother she never truly knew, the mother killed when she was still so young, the mother who's image was slowly being tarnished, twisted and polluted by the people closest to her.

Skipping to the end, I repeat the words in my head over and over, the words I dread for mine and Emma's sake, 'She will be the one. She shall end it all'.

EMMA

"Alright, kiddo?" I look up at my fathers sky blue eyes and laugh, letting him pull me up from the soaked ground. I nod my head to answer.

"I think I'm going to call it quits, let's go back inside, okay? You'll be no use to anyone with a cold!" I agree and head straight for the cabin. I climb the rocky, uneven earth with ease and hardly any effort as I skip along from path to path, the route memorised and engraved in my mind. My toned muscles show their worth as I hop across the stream and up the steep hill until I'm directly facing the cabin I've come to call home.

It's been two months since 'the chat' with Andy and Dad and my training has been relentless, thorough and strenuous. I've learnt techniques I never knew existed and have these awesome skills to fight people I never thought I'd need. My timetable now is basically just training from 7:45am to 8pm with only one ten minute break. At first, it was gruelling and the daily physical exertion and fights made every inch of me ache yet not enough to make me numb and blissfully unaware of the pain. Every muscle ached and strained with the simplest of movements and getting up in the mornings was such a struggle. After about a week though, the pain became more bearable, the bruises unnoticeable and the early mornings more tolerable. I developed a routine: eat, read, sleep, wake up, train, eat, read, sleep, train. I knew this would all change to someone more like sleep, wake up, fight my psycho mother to save the lives of many. I still don't know her plan and I know dad and Andy don't either but I wish I knew. It would help with everything, and keep the questions in my mind under lock and key instead of rattling in my brain, making me feel like I'm losing my sanity.

Dad was also training me in the art of survival as he calls it through days of fasting to prepare for what I'm going to endure when I'm "taken". Everyday, I dread that moment. Even with all this physical and mental preparation to ensure I can endure whatever is thrown at me, I'm afraid of what's ahead of me. I'm afraid of who I'll meet, my mother or Valerie the cult leader? Dad's taught me how to fight every manipulation technique he threw at me and I know in my head I can fight and beat her but my hearts weak and unsure and I really hope it'll harden before she takes me. For everyone's sake.