Redshift by Ashlynn Chantrea (love books to read txt) 📖

win out. But she tried to get around me rather than face me head on. I saw her body sink low to the ground and to my left. She tried to use speed, and she was fast, faster than the boy, but not fast enough to get past me. I grabbed her by the leg and swung her around, send her flying into the opposite wall. The stone wall cracked, sending dust flying thickly through the air and shaking the foundation under our feet. She immediately came at me and just like her predecessor, I took her head off. The sound didn’t bother me this time.

“Impressive.” A soft feminine voice sighed from outside the door.

I looked over at her. Instantly I recognized her. She was the one that had walked up to me on campus. I had been taken by how beautiful she looked, almost ethereal. Her angelic voice was like a Siren’s call. I had been mesmerized. She looked young, too young, my mind had screamed, ‘jail bait!’ at me but I had followed her anyway. Logically, I knew she was too young to be in college. Part of my brain had rationalized that she was just a young prodigy, a young genius unaccustomed to college life and wanted my help finding her way somewhere. And I had followed her to my demise…or to the end of my human life at least.

“What is your name, child?” The taller, dark haired vampire that had ushered in the humans asked. He stood next to the immortal girl, making her seem even smaller in comparison to someone so tall and muscular. He seemed like the bouncer type, more muscle than brains which was why I became irritated when he called me child. Of the two of us, I’d bet I was the more intelligent and emotionally mature.

“Adam.” I answered, my musical voice sounding brisk. I cringed slightly at the sound of my strange voice.

“Well, Adam, finish your meal and come meet the other new recruits.” The girl whispered, her soft voice indifferent.

“No!” I snapped at her.

My response got her attention. She looked at me more closely, scrutinizing my response. She looked more curious than confused, no irritation or stress accompanying her bewilderment.

“The others won’t attack you as these two did. They didn’t mean any harm. It can be hard at first to remember your manners when feeding.” She said with a slight smile on her lips.

As she spoke, I slowly moved to the girl still crying on the floor. I moved painfully slow as I bent down and reached my hand out towards her. I kept my eyes on the vampires outside the door. Before I could touch the girl, she moved away from my hand, scrambling back away from the door. I let her move on her own, positioning myself between her and the others.

The look in the small vampire’s eyes changed as she realized it wasn’t the prospect of meeting more vampires that bothered me, it was killing the girl. All amusement vanished and was replaced with annoyance.

“Let her go.” I said softly.

“I’ll handle this.” The boy that had led me here offered.

He walked in the room and watched me for a second. Then he came at me. He moved more expertly than the others. He changed his angle of attack as my posture changed to meet his. I didn’t get him on the first try. He moved out of the reach of my arm while simultaneously repositioning for another attack. He knew what he was doing but his speed wasn’t faster than I could process. I didn’t catch him at first but he missed me too. With each attempt to grab or claw at me, I ducked out of the way. As he grew frustrated, he became clumsier and a little more predictable. I took his head off as well and threw it onto the forming pile.

“Felix.” The girl sighed, exasperated.

With this one, I wasn’t so sure I would win. I looked over at the girl, feeling certain she had to be in charge here.

“Please, there’s no need to kill her. Just let her go.”

“Ah, but there is.” She replied, a sneer curling her upper lip, “One of our most important laws is secrecy. Anonymity is crucial to this existence. She knows too much. That makes her a threat.”

“One girl knowing we exist is a threat?” I scoffed, “Illogical. Even if she did tell anyone, no one would believe her. She’d be committed to a psych ward for the rest of her life. That’s if she decided to say anything to anyone at all.”

“We can’t take the risk.” She said firmly.

I knew at that point arguing was useless. She wasn’t unintelligent, I could see it in her eyes. She could see the validity of my argument and didn’t care. It was an excuse, the propaganda they spouted when someone thought to question their motives. It didn’t matter that this girl knew the truth. What mattered was their way of life. Those that rejected the hunt were a threat to the way they lived, not just their food source but their entertainment, the thrill of the hunt. I was endangering a part of what made this existence worth living to them.

I braced for Felix’s attack. He came at me like I guessed he would, relying on his strength to take me down. There was an arrogance to his movement. He was sure I couldn’t beat him.

His arrogance annoyed me. He reminded me of so many bullies I had suffered under growing up. To him strength of body was superior to strength of mind. It kind of pissed me off. My doubt and anxiety dissipated as anger took over. As each blow came at me I moved out of the way, studying how he moved, how he fought. I saw the opportunity to take a kill shot but I opted for just taking his arm off. I moved to the far wall, still holding his severed arm. He looked confused at first as he examined his ragged stump. Then he looked at me.

On impulse, I waved at him with his arm. Juvenile, yes, but funny nonetheless. A tiny part of my brain registered that this action was disturbing. And yet I couldn’t find it in me to care. I smiled as I waved his own hand at him.

He let out a shriek of rage and came barreling at me. His rage worked against him and I managed to rip his left leg off at the knee.

“Enough.” The girl outside the door huffed.

I was suddenly burning again, like I had when I first started changing. I dropped the severed limbs I was holding and collapsed to the floor.

My mind searched, trying to find the cause of this pain. I went over every part of my body, twice. Nothing was actually on fire. It wasn’t part of the change and it wasn’t from a physical source.

Then I looked at her. It was her. She was doing this to me somehow. But how?

Not important at the moment!

I went through the pain matrix again. All my previous barriers were still in place. It didn’t make sense. Unless she was attacking a specific area, one central location that sent messages to the rest of the brain screaming signals that alerted me that there was a torrent of flames engulfing me. I concentrated, and found one part of my brain working far more vigorously than the rest. It was an electrical storm, wave after wave of electric impulses spreading from here to the rest of my brain. Putting the walls up was intensely difficult just due to the sheer strength of the assault coming through. But in only a second I managed to block off the pain.

Her assault affected me for all of two seconds. I stood and faced her.

Her lips pulled back from her teeth and a growl ripped from her throat.

“Patience, sister.” A soft voice sighed from behind her. “What would master say if you destroyed him?”

She stomped her foot, leaving a dent in the stone floor and shrieked, “No! Not another one!”

“Think of what he could do.” Her brother suggested gently, “Given time and training, he would be a most valuable asset.”

He was almost as small as his sister. I wondered if they were actually related. They had the same lank brown hair (although his was slightly darker in color), the same complexion, the same shape mouth and eyes. They looked like they could be dizygotic twins.

He placed a hand on her shoulder and she straighten her posture. Her sneer softened until her features appeared neutral. She only glared at me now.

The brother walked around her and came into the room. He was confident as well but he didn’t have the stature that Felix had to make that pose seem natural. He had something more than mere physical strength. I imagined he was probably able to do something like his sister. Something magical.

My brain shied away from that thought. Thinking of magic in a practical manor felt wrong.

“Come meet the others.” He whispered to me. His tone was soothing, placating.

I tensed, “The girl.”

“Don’t worry about the girl.” He reached one hand out towards me and the other made a sweeping gesture to the door. “Come, there is much for you to learn about this new life.”

He had said the only word that could have distracted me from the girl. Learn. There was a lot that I didn’t understand, so much that I wanted to see and ask. The possibilities seemed infinite.

I walked to the door, glancing back at the girl. The boy followed close behind me. I didn’t like the proximity of him to my back so I kept moving. His sister took the lead, guiding me away from the feeding room. Part of me realized what they were doing. I told myself I couldn’t stop them. I was possibly the only vampire in existence that felt a moral dilemma when consuming their only available food source. No, dilemma didn’t cover it. There was a repulsion attached to the thought of killing people. There had to be another way.

I froze when I heard her scream cut short. Every muscle was locked in place. The stress sent a flood of electricity all over my brain. I felt the urge to run, scream, fight, crush things, bite the boy that had convinced me to leave her, to go back and kill them all. Nothing happened. I stayed still as a statue, not even breathing.

The boy placed his hand on my shoulder much like he had to his sister, “We’ll work on your aversion to food another time.”

A sense of hopelessness consumed me. Was this what life would be like from now on? Would I spend the rest of this strange life hating what I had become and wishing for death? Or would I eventually become desensitized? Is that something I wanted or would it be better to suffer the guilt and self-loathing in order to keep the part of myself that still cared?

I turned to him. My eyes stung like they had during allergy season while I was human. No tears came which I was glad about. I hadn’t ever liked the sensation of crying. It was a worthless reaction for adults in my opinion. It accomplished nothing.

I was weighed down with emotions right then. Nothing felt right anymore.

“Why?”

“Try to remember you are no longer human. They are food now. Did you feel so strongly about cattle before?”

“No, why am I not like her? Why did you decide to change me into this?”

A patient smile pulled at his lips, “You are special.”

I considered that. Based on what I had done so far I assumed I was probably formidable as a vampire. But why should that matter? And how did they know I would turn out this way? I wasn’t this capable as a human. How could they predict that I would become something special?

I briefly thought of asking him these questions, he was by far the closest to me in intellectual capacity but I decided against it.