Forbidden Blood

Chapter 24: Vincent

I walk to the sign and whisper the words engraved there.

"Welcome to the Western Border. Population: 301."

"The 1 has been removed and a three was written in it's place..." Johnson mutters.

"Adriana and Tarynn have been here."

"That could have been anyone, we don't know it was them." Zarro says.

"Yeah, but check this," Johnson walks to the other side of the border. "The back of the sign reads, 'Welcome to the Eastern Border. Population 467.' Only the 7 has been etched out and replaced with a 5..."

"Okay, this proves our theory. They are definitely going to ask the witches for help, and they definitely came this way." Zoë remarks. "Does the enchanted map book say where they are?"

Clara opens the book and turns to the page where two dots are glowing...

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"We're not far now, do you want to rest?" I ask Adriana. She looks tired and exhausted from carrying all of her things. I decided to carry nothing. Nothing is more important to me than this.

"No, Tarynn." she snaps, "We can't rest until we reach the western witches. You know how important it is that we reach them before anyone finds out what we're doing!"

"Sorry," I mutter, continuing to walk alongside her. "Do you want me to carry something?"

"No!" she gets angrier and angrier every time I talk to her. I just want to find someone else to talk to after this.

Hopefully the witches will be easy to convince. Maybe we won't have to lie again... Either way I'm prepared for what we will face. The witches will be on our side either way. I know they will; it's only a matter of how much coercing we will have to do.

I think once Adriana gets into a more stable position, she'll be less angry with me. If she was any less angry, I'd be worried. She has it in her head that the vampires are ruthless killers, but they really aren't. I owe it to my twin sister to avenge her death, but after that, I don't want anything to do with Adriana. Not after all the lies she's told me. And not after what we're about to start...

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"They aren't near the witch community, but I think they'll be there soon." Clara looks at the map book.

"So we'd better get going and convince the vampires before they can do any more damage." Zoë crosses her arms and gets a serious look on her face.

"Yeah, I agree." I say.

"Alright, then, let's double time it." Zarro commands, leading us through the Western Border. I follow, walking next to Clara. She still holds the map book as she walks, and I reckon it's probably pretty heavy.

"Can I hold that for you?"

"Sure, thanks." she passes the book to me, plopping it in my hands.

We run for the rest of the way, which isn't very far. I keep expecting the girls to get tired and ask to stop, but they persevere and run at the same speed as us. They must really be determined to stop Adriana and Tarynn. I just hope we can convince the western vampires...

I remember hearing horror stories about them when I was younger. Sometimes I would hear the older vampires talking in hushed voices. I could catch glimpses of the words they spoke, but never enough to get the entire picture. I just assumed that the western vampires were bad, and that we couldn't talk about them.

I've actually never heard much about other vampires in Authern. I mean, there have to be some, other than us and the western vampires, but they've never come into contact with us. I mean, we've never really gone out of our way to see the other vampires, so it isn't really that surprising, but at the same time, we should have come across them at some point...

Suddenly, Zarro slows down. We start to near some rocky caves that look like a good place for vampires. Zarro must know this too, because he looks nervous. I've never seen him this scared.

"Okay. Let's go in."