Blood Land by J.R. Lawson (top ten ebook reader TXT) 📖

So she couldn’t die.  I couldn’t believe it.  She didn’t really care about me.  She was dying and she still only just wanted something from me for selfish reasons.  What I said to her was ‘I thought you didn’t have a son…’ and when she begged me some more and said I was being selfish I told her she could go to hell.  I told her I wasn’t going to turn her into a vampire so she could what, ignore me for another eternity?  No.  I refused to give her what she wanted.  It was after that that she cursed at me and yelled and screamed with as much strength as she had to do so.  I remember hearing it all the way down the hall as I left her there.  It was about a day or two later that she died.  I didn’t go to her funeral.”  Kale finished his story with a sigh as he rested his elbows on his knees and looked downward.  Nora looked over at him silently.  The silence between them lasted a few minutes.

“So…now you know.  I let my mom die,” Kale then said, still looking down, “It probably wasn’t the right thing to do but I just hated her….because she never loved me.  Or even tried to…”

“Kale,” Nora then softly spoke, “Its o.k.  I understand…”

Kale now looked up at her, “How could you?” he asked.

“My parents were never around either…”

“Yeah, but they were what, scientists?  They were doing good work.”

Nora chuckled and rolled her eyes a bit. “Yeah but they never made time for me…never.  They didn’t even try to.  Work was always more important than me.  They let someone else’s parents raise me!  And not that I won’t always be grateful to Will’s parents and I’ll always love them but…I always wished deep down that I had had my own parents…ya know?”

Kale nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

“I don’t blame you for what you did.  I don’t.  And I’m glad you felt you could tell me about it,” Nora consoled with a soft smile as Kale gave her one back.

CHAPTER 33

 IT WAS A few days into the week and Kale and Caroline had finally finalized their divorce.  They had both gone the day before and surprisingly it hadn’t taken long.  Nora had noticed a sudden change in Caroline afterward; a more sullen one, even though she hadn’t spoken to her since the last time they argued.  Kale had always been around, almost babysitting the two of them.  Nora didn’t really appreciate that but she was also glad she didn’t have to deal with Caroline; not much longer especially now that they had finally gotten the divorce taken care of.

This day however, Kale was busy up on the roof trying to fix a few shingles.  He said he had noticed some were missing and with it looking as if was going to snow, especially tonight, he wanted to go ahead and fix it.  However, this meant Nora and Caroline had to be together alone in the house, and Nora wasn’t exactly thrilled about that.  She tried to make the best of it though and spent most of her time in her room, mostly trying to see if she could attempt to break the lock on that old desk that was there.  She still hadn’t solved the mystery of what it was that Kale was hiding in there but she was still determined to find out.  All of a sudden, Nora felt a presence behind her and she turned around.  It was Caroline standing in her open doorway.

“What do you want?” Nora coldly asked her.

“Just watching,” Caroline bluntly stated, “But if you were to ask me, if you want into that desk, why not just use the key?”

Nora stood and stared at her with much confusion until Caroline leaned in and tapped her finger onto a decorative statue that sat on a bookshelf that lined the wall next to her door.  Other than giving Nora a small smile, that was all she did as she then turned to leave.  Nora waited until Caroline was all the way downstairs before she decided to look under said statue, which she found was indeed a small key.  She couldn’t believe she had never thought to look there before.

Instantly she went to put it into the desk’s lock, but hesitated a bit before turning it.  Should she really do this?  Was there something in here that Caroline wanted her to see and did she really want to see that?  Eventually curiosity got the better of her and Nora shrugged off her thoughts and turned the key finally unlocking the desk.  When she pulled open the center drawer, what she found inside were tons of photographs.  Most of them were of Kale, an old one or two from the year 2013 of Kale and his dad before he had become a vampire.  Then there were ones from 2018 that had both Kale and Caroline in them.  Just scenes from different things they had done together with one wedding picture.  Most of those pictures were crumpled and wrinkled as if Kale may have at one point thrown them away and then pulled them back out of the trash.  Nora didn’t really care about most of these pictures.  She guessed she understood why Kale had tried to hide them, though.  He hadn’t wanted her to know about Caroline at all.

All of a sudden, a certain picture had caught Nora’s eye.  It was an older looking photograph, in color but not as well printed as the others.  It was a picture of two people standing outdoors, one tall male; probably around the age of eighteen, with a younger female; a young teenager maybe twelve or thirteen.  The girl in the picture was hugging the boy who was wearing military camouflage.  Nora seemed to stare at the photo for a long while.  The small blonde girl in the picture she couldn’t quite place but the boy in the camo looked very familiar.  He had an air about him that, with his slicked back blonde hair, really seemed to spark a bit of recognition in Nora’s mind.  She then flipped the picture over to see if anything was written on the back and in small writing in the upper right corner was written: “Me and Charlie – 2012”

Nora soon looked back at the front of the picture some more.  “Charlie?” she thought to herself, “Who’s Charlie?”  It didn’t take long for her to deduce, since most of these pictures in this desk were of Kale and Caroline, that perhaps Caroline was the small girl in the picture being referred to as “me”.  That then begged the question even further as to who Charlie was and why he looked so eerily familiar.

Eventually Nora pulled herself away from the desk and the eerie photo long enough to go downstairs.  Kale was apparently still working on the roof as she could hear him above and Caroline was sitting on the couch, staring at her own nails.

“Have fun snooping?” she said to Nora without turning to face her.

“What?” Nora asked her.

“What?” Caroline mocked in a higher voice so as to imitate Nora.  She then stood up from the couch and faced her. “Find anything interesting in there?”

Nora stood silently for a moment.  She knew she wasn’t supposed to talk to Caroline anymore, but she really wanted to ask her about the photo. “Just a photo of you,” she suddenly found herself blurting out.

Caroline’s eyes widened. “Oh really?” she inquired.

“Yes, you and a guy named Charlie…” Nora urged on.

“Oh, wow fascinating…” Caroline said sarcastically.

“What’s fascinating is that Charlie looks a lot like a certain nasty vampire…” Nora kept trying to get Caroline to tell her about it, but Caroline wouldn’t budge.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she nonchalantly stated.

“Dagon!” Nora then shouted; she couldn’t dance around it anymore. “He looks like Dagon!”

Caroline then threw her head back and laughed loudly. “Wow, you are really crazy!  Do you hear yourself?”

“You can’t deny he looks like Dagon!  You must know him somehow!” Nora now accused.

“Sweetie,” Caroline then calmly started as she put a hand on Nora’s shoulder, “You really need to get a reality check.  Dagon is a vampire…and that guy in the picture you saw, Charlie, he’s a human…”

“You’re in that picture too, and you’re a human there,” Nora argued.

“Oh well, then you got me!” Caroline shouted playfully as she raised her arms up in fake surrender, “With your hard evidence you figured me out!” She then laughed some more.

“I’m going to show Kale.  I’m going to tell him about—”

“About what?” Caroline interrupted as she continued to laugh. “You go ahead, hun.  You show Kale and tell him all your stories about me.  I know you’re just doing it to try to make me look bad because you have some kind of little crush on him.”

Nora was taken aback at Caroline’s statement. “W-what?”

“I can see it on your little face!” Caroline continued as she now circled Nora, “You like him!  Which is pretty pathetic actually.  And now you have to make up stories in order to make me look bad.”

“I don’t like him!” Nora angrily disputed, even though she could feel herself starting to blush which she desperately tried to hide.

“You do too!  Look at your face!” Caroline kept laughing.

“Shut up!” Nora screamed now.

Caroline finally stopped her laughter for a minute to speak generally, “Oh sweetie,” she started, her tone indicating that she was talking to a child, “You really have yourself all tangled up in a big mess, don’t you?  I know a lot more about what’s going on with you and Kale than you think. Like for instance…the Vinculum…”

Nora’s eyes widened. “W-wha…?” was all she could get out.

“That’s right…I know about it.  Kale didn’t tell me but it didn’t take an idiot to figure it out.  Especially after seeing that scar on the bottom of your foot.  Definitely one healed by a vampire.”

“Kale didn’t heal my foot!” Nora instantly rebutted.

“That’s what he said too…but I know what kind of a scar is left after a vampire heals a wound.  And that’s one of them.”

“You’re wrong!” Nora shouted, “Besides, how do you even know what that looks like?”

“Oh trust me hun, I’ve seen my share of Vinculum scars.”

“Well, I don’t care what you’ve seen…you’re still wrong!”

Caroline laughed again, “O.k. sweetie, whatever you say.  I guess if he didn’t heal you there he must have another place.  Maybe he healed you a second time on the foot to make you stronger…”

“What?” Nora now sincerely inquired.

“Oh you didn’t know?  The more a vampire heals a human the stronger and more like a vampire they get.”

Nora stood staring at Caroline silently for a moment as she absorbed this information. “H-how do you know all this?” she finally asked.

“That’s my business, sweetheart.” Caroline stood in front of Nora, leaning on one leg, her hip sticking out to one side. “Besides, once Kale is done using you for his revenge on Dagon or whatever, he’s just going to kick you to the curb.  That part hasn’t changed.”

“You’re wrong about that!  Kale and I are friends!”

“You’re cute!” Caroline laughed again. “Why would Kale be friends with a human?!  And really, you expect him to, what, invite you to live with him