Walk Into The Light - Shadows of the Night 6

Chapter 33

Hey,

I hope you had a great week! It's a shorter chapter this week, but I promise, more will follow and I'll try to make it up to you - and I mean it, so please bear with me! :-)

This week's song is "Winter in my Heart" by Vast. Thanks to fabulous @ShadowsAfterglow, who suggested this! :-)

Lara

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Chapter 33

I narrowed my eyes. "Why are you trying to carter me off to the mansion so quickly? What aren't you telling me, Zack?"

The nightly shadows tightened around me like a soft, blanketed noose, my vision sharpening. The moment Alexander had called me back while I'd been drinking from Melissa flashed up in front of my eyes. Zack's words, a half-asked question halted in mid-sentence.

Something was off. First this strange trip to the plant, then meeting Melissa and... The whole feeding was awkward.

Wait a moment.

"After the feeding, you said something to Alexander. You were about to ask something. What was that about?"

Zack remained silent.

"He made me stop drinking during every..." I hesitated. Saying it would make this even more real. "... feeding," I said flatly. "Is it because he thinks I'm a threat to humans?"

Zack stared at me. Was that a silent confirmation? Had I just voiced what he and everybody else, including Alexander, had refused to tell me up until this point?

I looked away. If I saw something akin to pity in his eyes, I would go nuts.

"I don't know. I think something's wrong with me, Zack. Every time I feed, it's like... it's never enough. I'm not made for this. I never wanted this."

"Anna, you're wrong. It's not-" Zack stopped, and looked away, then looked back at me again. Gestures that struck me as uncommonly human. The boy-next-door-attitude was in full force.

"Most of us became vampires against our will. We've all been where you are and trust me it will get better. I need you to trust me and to trust Alexander."

"The trust thing goes two ways, Zack. How can I trust you, when no one is telling me anything? Why don't you just tell me? Get it over with?"

I cocked my head. Something had moved, close to the factory. A small trickle of something, a familiar tingle that brushed over my skin like a shiver. My vision brightened, my ears prickling with the incoming soft noise of a heartbeat.

That sense I didn't understand yet, it said "human" and yet "not human."

Behind the factory. Someone familiar.

My head snapped to the side, a secondary move that seemed to happen after I went into motion. The world narrowed down as my feet flew over asphalt and littered pieces of broken glass, Zack's voice just a fading background noise that might have come from far away.

"No, you don't!"

Zack's power lashed out without a warning. I could feel him right behind me, a cold sensation that slammed into my back like a monster-truck in full speed. Urging me to stop and stay still. He was seconds away from reaching me. Like an electrified lasso, his power was trying to reign me in.

But it was there. Right in front of me. This feeling was so familiar. It called to me with a power I couldn't name.

No, this was someone I knew. Something I knew so well.

I pushed myself forward, throwing myself into the folds of the night, slipping and diving into what I used to call vamp speed. Cold night air hit my face, touching my skin with the softness of a lover's rough calloused hands. I rounded the outside wall of the tower, pursuing the path that would finally lead me to the back part of the factory.

The nightly folds around me stilled and halted, then exploded outward.

"Anna, stop righ-"

The half-cut off scream of Zack was drowned out by a flare of white noise, accompanied by that familiar feeling that was calling, calling to me.

I turned and found a huge wall of water caught up in a stand-still behind me, Zack somewhere behind it – effectively cut off from me.

I wanted to weep with joy. I wanted to run into it and touch it with my own hands.

Elemental magic.

Not just any, but water magic that seemed familiar.

"Anna!"

I turned again. Andy and Giuliana were standing beside the foot of the main tower like they'd been waiting for me for a long time.