Redshift, Ashlynn Chantrea [early reader books .TXT] 📗

over anything. In all other ways he had been graceful. It didn’t make sense that he had tripped. The other, smaller kid took advantage of his stumble and took off his leg. He smiled a little.

“Try again,” The girl said softly, no hint of annoyance in her gentle voice.

Then the winner fell to the ground crying out in anguish. He didn’t try to hide the agony as he writhed and screamed.

“Jane,” Felix whispered, barely loud enough for me to hear.

She shot Felix a warning glance, but released the boy from her torturous hold.

“This time don’t use your power.” Jane warned the boy. “This exercise is to develop your hand to hand combat. You cannot rely solely on your powers. There is always someone who can cancel out your gift. When you meet with someone like that you must be able to fight without your talent.”

“Again.” Felix ordered.

The loser had reassembled himself and they fought again. It was a pretty even match in terms of skill and force. The smaller wiry boy with long, wavy, dark hair won again, taking the loser’s arm this time. Felix ordered the kid to take the kill. Curiously I watched, wondering exactly how you kill a vampire.

The boy hesitated.

Jane pounced on the opportunity to deliver punishment. The winner was in agony again.

“Mercy is for the weak.” She sighed. She moved like she was floating, slowly sneaking up behind the boy that had lost the fight. He didn’t seem to notice her, his eyes locked on the boy writhing in pain, “In battle, any hesitation will only aid the enemy. If you think your enemy will show you mercy,” Like a strike of lightning, she reached forward and ripped the boy’s head from his shoulders, “then you are mistaken.” She dropped the head and wiped her hands on her dark gray cloak like she had touched something filthy.

“That’s enough for now.” Felix said, “We will practice again later.” He gave Jane a look filled with meaning. I didn’t quite understand what was passing between them. Jane finally released the boy from her spell. Then they walked out of the room together.

A tall girl with an almost ash grey complexion went to the winner’s side.

“Hector,” She said softly, her voice filled with concern, “Are you all right?”

He was still panting slightly, “I’ll never get used to that.” He shuddered.

She helped him up and they moved over to the back corner of the room together. Two other vampires helped put the loser back together. He looked traumatized when awareness returned to his face. It didn’t last long. He went off with the two that had helped him. Everyone spread out from the center of the room, moving to the edges. All except me.

I looked around the room. There were definite groupings, clans forming. They mostly grouped in pairs. There were a few that had three members huddled together. Only one group was larger than three. In the back corner Hector and the girl that had gone to him were joined by another boy and girl.

They were an odd group. None of them looked quite a like. Hector was small, young, maybe sixteen or seventeen and had a slight olive tone to his pallor. He wore non-descript clothes, a plain black shirt, baggy jeans, keds on his feet. The girl with the ash complexion must have had dark brown skin as a human. Although her color was unusual, it was still beautiful. Her black hair hung long in hundreds of thin braids down past her shoulder blades. She wore a tight short sleeved blue shirt and cut-off jean shorts. Strangely, her feet were bare. The boy that joined their group looked slightly older, maybe a senior in high school or just beginning college. He had neatly cut brown hair that was parted to one side. He wore a polo shirt, khakis and dusty white sneakers.

I made all these observations in my mind in the time it takes to blink, but when my eyes moved to the last girl in the group, time seemed to stop.

She was an enigma. Her appearance was chaotic. Her black hair hung at its longest length to just below her shoulders. It was choppy and uneven, like she had randomly grabs chunks of her hair and cut them without measuring or caring how long or short they ended up. Her shirt looked hand made from four seemingly clashing materials that somehow worked together perfectly. Her jeans had tears with black lace showing through the ragged holes. She wore thick black army boots that looked worn but sturdy. Her complexion was white as snow, making her hair look bold in contrast. Everything about her appearance seemed to suggest she should look plain and that she didn’t care. But she was breathtaking. So beautiful I couldn’t look away.

That was until her eyes met mine. Then my eyes had no trouble darting away. Part of me felt like I should be blushing but I didn’t. Another relief about this body. Blushing is a useless physical reaction, one I always despised.

Hoping to seem nonchalant, I took my former seat on the window ledge. They were close enough to me from there I could focus on them easily without drawing attention to myself. I let my eyes scan the room, making mental notes of things that caught my attention but my main focus was on her group. I didn’t look directly at them, just scanned them with my peripheral vision now and then. I mostly listened to them.

They didn’t talk too much and they were far less twitchy than the rest. They kept their backs to the wall but they sat on the floor. No one else was sitting other than me and this strange group. There was something else about them that made them different and it took me a minute to identify it. While everyone had anxiety issues here, most of them didn’t seem disturbed or unhappy, except this group. They seemed intensely morose.

My attention shifted as movement down the hall made everyone become still. More vampires entered the room, escorted by Felix and the male twin that had brought me here. Felix and the boy disappeared without a word. The three vampires they left behind were teenage girls. The girls were all very similar in facial structure and size. They must have been sisters. They walked quietly to the back of the room and joined the four I had been observing before. They fit in perfectly with the group. They seemed even more depressed than the others. They each had long reddish brown hair, the same gentle pallor, and they all looked strangely skinny, far skinnier than any other vampire I had observed so far. But something else stuck out about these three. Their eyes. Everyone in the room had glowing red eyes, the four I had observed before had slightly duller eyes than most but still very bright in comparison to Jane and Felix. But these three had dark red eyes. While everyone else’s eyes were fire engine red, theirs were closer to wine colored. I wondered what made them different. For the first time I became curious what my own eyes looked like. It was a fleeting curiosity.

The large group began conversing again, asking the newcomers if they were okay. They seemed to know each other and no one else in the room seemed surprised to see them. I wondered where they had been and why they were separated from the group.

“This place sucks.” Hector sighed. He didn’t seem to be talking to anyone specifically.

“I don’t get it.” One sister said. Without hesitation the next sister continued, “It doesn’t make sense.” And the third immediately picked up where the last had left off, “Why don’t they just kill us?”

They made it sound like one stream of consciousness, like it was one continuous thought they were all thinking at the same time. They didn’t seem to be directing their questions at anyone in particular either.

“Maybe they don’t want to decrease their numbers anymore.” My stunning enigma suggested softly.

“I doubt it.” The other girl said sharply but quietly, “They haven’t exactly been shy about it up to this point.”

“Bianca’s right,” the older boy whispered, “If they think they’re getting low on numbers, they’ll just get more.” He cringed and looked away from the group.

“So why not us?” The first sister asked. Without a pause in between the second said, “We aren’t like the others.” And the third finished the thought with, “And they won’t be able to make us conform.” Then they all sighed in unison, “Why won’t they just kill us?”

I thought about that. They evidently had no issue killing their own kind according to the group. When I had shown defiance, they had tried to kill me or at the very least disable me. But when I had shown I could beat them, the attitude had changed. The brother had said I could be a valuable asset. They wouldn’t destroy what they deemed too valuable.

“You’re too valuable.” I whispered to them.

The entire group peered up at me. They looked mildly curious through the depression clouding their faces.

I jumped down from the ledge and moved closer to them. The boys flinched but otherwise no one moved when I came closer. They all still watched me with sad, questioning eyes.

“Valuable?” Bianca scoffed.

“Whatever it is that makes you special, they feel they can’t do without it.” I clarified. “Whatever this enemy clan can do, they apparently need very gifted individuals to fight them.”

They all seemed to ponder that but no one replied.

“Have you thought of forming a rebellion?” I breathed, making sure only the group beside me could hear me. Last thing I needed was to give Jane an excuse to kill me.

Panic quickly took hold in each of their eyes.

“Don’t talk like that!” Bianca whispered harshly.

“Others have tried,” One sister said sadly. The next said, “No one succeeds.” The last said, “They always kill them.” All together they whispered, “They burn them in front of all of us as a warning.”

Mental note: fire kills vampires. Good to know.

So they kill mutineers to deter the others from trying. They probably do the same to those that try to escape. Keeping the troops in line.

But this group, the sisters particularly, seemed so suicidal it occurred to me that death shouldn’t be a contributing factor in that decision.

“Does that really matter? Wouldn’t death be preferable to you?” I asked, purely curious.

The sisters all looked at each other. They seemed to ponder their answer carefully. Then in unison they shook their heads slowly.

“You could try to run. Could they really catch all of you?”

“There’s more of them out there than you know.” The older boy whispered. He spoke with authority, he must have seen them. “No one that’s tried has ever escaped.”

So they had guards around the perimeter. They were determined to keep their recruits through force or intimidation. Not one had escaped. They put a lot of effort into keeping their army. It reeked of desperation.

“If only I knew more about their enemy.” I was talking to myself, not thinking about the fact that they could hear me mumbling, “I don’t have enough information to even begin to form a hypothesis.”

“They have a mind reader, one that can see the future, one that can cause pain, and one that can shield herself and others from those with gifts like Jane.” The older boy replied.

I was astonished not only that he had answered me at all but that he had that information.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“They aren’t as guarded with me, I heard them talking about them. They talked about the kinds of vampires they need to defeat them. And that they weren’t allowed to destroy two of them. They talked about taking a few hostage but the two most important were named Alice and Bella.”

“Why let any of their enemies live?” I pondered quietly, “If they’re so dangerous to their way of life, you would think they would just destroy them all. Wipe out the threat.”

“I don’t know why.” He replied, shrugging.

“Did you hear anything else? Who started the war? What exactly they’re fighting over?”

He shook his head.

It occurred to me that they