Tainted Crimson (11 page)

“Because the power that I sense inside of you is unlike anything I’ve ever felt. I have to admit that I’m curious. Also, I’d hate to see a pretty face like yours get messed up by a foolish vampire or something. You really should have another way of defending yourself,” he urges and I can tell he’s being completely honest. He truly thinks this will be best for me.

“Will it hurt?” I wonder.

“I don’t know, probably. I’ll try and find the least painful disease that I can.” He snickers to himself.

“And you promise that if my body doesn’t do anything right away, you’ll get rid of it?” I continue to question.

“I promise.”

You only live once I guess. “Okay, it’s a deal.”

I have no idea why I’ve agreed to do this. Have I lost it? Uh,
yeah
, Ariella, you definitely have! I just gave my consent to let some guy, who is practically a stranger, inject me with a disease. Pictures I’ve seen in textbooks and things of people dying from smallpox and other terrible things pass through my mind. I’m waiting in the basement for D to return while contemplating my decision. Are we going to do this right here in my basement? Surely there’s a better place to do this. What if it like escapes and infects the whole town or something? Is that even possible? I cringe. I sure hope not.

When he returns after only a few minutes, I have convinced myself that I am in fact crazy. In his hand is a syringe, smaller than I expected I must say, although it’s still rather menacing.

I’m sure my eyes are about to bulge from their sockets because he laughs cautiously and approaches me slowly as if I’m an animal about to be put down. Suddenly I’m not only indecisive or scared, I’m terrified. This is a terrible idea!

“The needle part won’t hurt,” he promises and grabs my wrist.

I shudder. “What is it?” I ask, wanting more information about what he’s going to put inside of me.

“You’d be better off not knowing, trust me,” he answers with a half grin full of sympathy.

“Okay, just do it. How long is it going to take?” I demand while squeezing my eyes shut.

“It shouldn’t take long. Actually if all goes well we should be finished in an hour tops,” he assures me but his assurance doesn’t at all help.

“
If
all goes well?”

He rolls his eyes. “You’re being dramatic.”

“You’re about to inject small pox or something in me!” I contradict him.

“True, but it’s not smallpox for the record.”

I still have my eyes clamped shut.

“I’m not sure if you’re more afraid of the disease inside of here or the syringe,” he admits and I hear the syringes cap fall to the ground. Uh oh.

“Both,” I say mindlessly as I envision him slamming the needle into my shoulder.

“Done,” he whispers almost to himself. “You didn’t even bleed.”

Done?
I slowly open my eyes expecting this to be some joke. I didn’t even feel it.

“I numbed the area with a small spell before I stuck the needle in because you were being a baby. You’re fine. Lay down on the mat,” he instructs and I follow his direction.

“How do you feel?” He asks after a moment of silence.

“Normal.” I swallow hard. I don’t know what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it. Okay, I do know what I was expecting, I was expecting to be in agony from the time the needle punctured my skin.

“That’s not a good sign,” he shakes his head.

“Why not?” Isn’t it a good sign that I’m not super ill right now?

“Because it should only take your body a few seconds to recognize the intruder and attack it. This could mean that it wasn’t recognized and it’s infecting you right now,” he says while grabbing my wrist and counting. Checking my pulse?

“I feel
something
. I’m not sure what though. Something is definitely happening with your power. It’s kind of vibrating or something like it’s trying to get out.”

“What does that mean?” I ask slowly. Oh my god, this was a terrible idea. Why would I go through with something so blatantly dumb?

“I don’t know,” he answers while looking into my eyes apologetically. I wonder why he’s looking at me that way. Then I feel it, my wrist snaps beneath his grip.

I scream in pain. Holy
shit
.

“Shh,” he begs calmly while still clutching my wrist. I try and pull it away so I can hold it but the pain is unbearable and I have to give up on pulling it from his grasp, I’m only making things worse. I’m going to
kill
him. If he was going to bust my wrist couldn’t he have at least numbed it like he did for the stupid little needle? “Sorry.” How many more limbs is he going to break? I wonder erratically, beginning to panic.

My heart hammers in my chest and I feel like puking. I feel tears stream down my face and I begin sweating. God damnit my wrist hurts like something else.

“There we go. Something is happening Ariella, stay with me for a minute longer and then I’ll make the pain go away.”

I feel like using him as a punching bag. I cuss under my breath and use my good wrist to wipe away the sweat dripping down my forehead.

“This is going to get bad, I’m speeding up the effect of the disease,” he warns and the whole feeling like I’m about to vomit things turns into me really vomiting. All over the mat. D wrinkles his nose and then the vomit is miraculously gone. My vision begins blurring and then I’m no longer sitting up anymore. My breathing becomes raspy and my lips become dry. My lungs are too sore to bring in any air. I feel like I’m dying. I really am going to
kill
him after this. That is, if I get the chance, shouldn’t he be healing me by now? Is he going to let me die?

“Shit,” I hear him cuss but my mind is too lost to hear the urgency. “Stay with me. Just a minute longer, Ariella.”

Everything starts fading to black all too quickly. My vision goes from blurry to black in an instant. Pain shoots through every nerve ending in my body. For a moment I wonder if I’m dead but then another sharp slice of pain rockets through my body. I’m definitely not dead
yet
.

“Come on, come on. Ariella, open your eyes.” Is the last thing I hear before the pain finally seizes and everything fades away. It fades away only for a moment though because then a bright white light fills my vision although my eyes are closed I can still see it. An intense sense of warmth fills my body and for a moment I feel like I’m in heaven, it’s just
so
bright.

When the blinding light finally disappeared I realize that I feel no pain. I open my eyes and see D, wide eyed with surprise and...
fear
? Then the euphoric feeling I’m experiencing turns back into intense pain only this time it’s different. My spine feels like it’s disintegrating. I scream louder than I thought imaginable and then everything goes black again.

I wake up to D rambling something under his breath beside me. I’m still laying downstairs on the mat only now I feel absolutely fine again. What the hell? I feel better than fine, I feel better than I’ve felt well, ever. It’s a strange feeling like all my cells are dancing. Even my wrist is completely healed. I had my doubts at the end about D coming through with his promise and healing me if I couldn’t manage it but apparently he did eventually come through.

I can’t make out any words but I can tell he’s upset. I sit up, careful not to overdo it in case I’m still ill.

D looks at me as if he’s looking at a ghost.

“What?” I ask finally. “Did it work?”

He jumps up from his spot on the floor and wraps his arms around me in a strong embrace pulling me up off the floor and onto my feet. Surprised, I gasp. Since when is he all emotional?

“What?” I ask again.

“How do you feel?” he demands, pulling back from the hug and staring at me directly in the eyes, his own eyes are huge as if with surprise.

“I’m fine,” I answer him skeptically.

“You scared me. You were out for almost three hours. I thought your dad was going to come back and I was going to have to explain why you were unconscious on the floor.”

“Like I said, I’m fine,” I say again smiling. “I feel ten times better than I did last time I was conscious.”

“Yeah, well, it worked. I can see your light without trying now. It’s bright, brighter than you father’s which is really weird. It shouldn’t be so bright. It must be something about your mixed blood which doesn’t make sense but there’s no other logical answer. You healed yourself.”

“Now what?” I ask unsure while staring down at my hands, they’re tingling like when you lay down funny and lose circulation in them. It’s weird.

“I don’t know. I got rid of the syringe and stuff so your dad doesn’t find out about this. I doubt he would approve of me injecting diseases into his only daughter.”

“So we’re not going to tell him?” I wonder.

“Not about the crap I injected you with. Just tell him that you feel funny and he’ll see your light. He’ll think that
it’s happening
. Tomorrow we’ll work on moving a leaf or something. I’m not sure how strong you’ll be power-wise. I’m sure you will eventually be able to do enough to at least protect yourself if you have to, which I also hope you’ll never have to do alone. Your light is bright but that doesn’t always signify the amount of power a witch has. Sometimes if a witch’s aura is white it makes their light seem brighter.” he enlightens me.

“So this is it? I don’t feel any different.”

“Yeah, you might feel some tingling in your fingers but other than that you won’t feel much different. Hopefully we can get in some practice tomorrow. Your dad will probably want to be there to watch. Jacob too probably. We’ll make it a party.”

I roll my eyes.

“Your dad should be home soon. He called about an hour ago said he was almost done.”

“Okay, uh thanks for everything.” I murmur awkwardly and wonder if this means I can go upstairs and have a shower now. I stink so bad that I can smell myself. It’s so bad that I want to gag.

“I’m going to make some more bacon,” he informs me, breaking the awkwardness between us thankfully.

I laugh. “How are you not like super fat?”

“I have a killer metabolism,” he jokes and then he’s gone. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to disappear into another room like that, or to Disney World. God would that ever be neat.

I race up the stairs to find him already throwing bacon into a pan.

“Want some this time?” he asks with a smirk. “Last time you said you couldn’t because you’d vomit but you vomited anyways.”

Embarrassed beyond belief, I pretend like I don’t hear him and run up the stairs to shower.

As soon as I make contact with the warm water, I feel alive again. I feel like for the first time in days, I can breathe and man, oh man does it ever feel nice.

I grab some shampoo from the ledge that my dad must’ve thrown in for me and lather it into my hair. The smell of blueberries fills my bathroom. Once I know that I’ve spent far too long in the shower, I jump out and wrap a towel around my wet body.

I unlock my bathroom door and stroll into my bedroom, thrilled that I no longer have to walk across the hall like I did in our house in Denver.

I nearly scream when I see figure lying lazily across my bed, bacon in hand.

“What are you doing in here? Get out!” I shout at D who is killing himself laughing as if he’s hilarious. I curse and throw a candle holder from my new dresser at him. He catches it and places it on the bed beside him.

“I’m supposed to be babysitting you, remember?” he chuckles.

“Not while I’m naked!”

“You’re not naked, even if you were, do you know how many naked females these eyes have seen?”

“Get out!” I cry again even angrier this time.

“Okay, okay, I was just bringing you bacon, calm down,” he tries and tosses me a piece through the air.

“You’re going to get grease on everything!” I scold as it flies through the air. Then suddenly it stops just before hitting the wall beside me.

“Ha.
Ha
.” I laugh mockingly. “
Out!
”

“I didn’t do that,” D says a little curiously. “You did that, apparently you really didn’t want that bacon to hit the wall.”

“Nice try, I didn’t do that. I didn’t do anything except envision me killing you. I
will
eat it though.” I correct him, my mouthwatering. I pluck the bacon from where it floats, shoving it into my mouth.

“You totally did do that. Maybe you’ll be a natural like I was. Doubtful though, usually those with high tempers have the most difficulty practicing magic,” he teases and rushes from the room before I have the chance hit
or kill
him.

I wonder if I really did in fact do that just now. Somehow I feel doubtful, but at the same time I can’t help but hope that I did.

I can’t say that the whole magic thing doesn’t interest me because it definitely does. My whole life I’ve been this plain Jane girl from Denver, Colorado and now, I’m living in a world full of supernatural creatures and I, myself am supposedly one of them. My life just did a one eighty in a few short days.

All this being said, I’m also completely shocked and terrified by all of this. You could say that I have extremely mixed emotions about this entire situation.

I throw on some clothes from the end of the bed and lay down on my mattress. I long for my cellphone but I am aware that I’m probably not about to get it back any time soon. I sigh. I wonder how Mindy is doing.

She’s probably freaking out because she can’t get ahold of me.

I also wonder about Nathan. What is he doing? I wonder if he really was working for Marco. Was he the one who warned my dad and ended up saving me from Marco’s grasp? I shudder recalling the dream of mine that Marco had invaded. I pray that it doesn’t happen again. I’ve been so tired the last few times I’ve fell asleep that I was physically and mentally unable to stay awake even though I was completely terrified that he would return to my nightmares.

I wonder how I will manage to sleep tonight, or tomorrow, or the next day knowing that he can enter my mind at any moment while I’m sleeping. I dread bedtime but also dread daytime because daytime means reality and my reality right now is nearly as screwed up as a paranormal romance novel or actually maybe even more screwed up than that which is really saying something.

I lay in bed for a moment longer and then I hear the front door open and close. It must be my father and I know that the first second of free time he finds, he will be up here talking to me about this mess. The mess that no matter how hard I try and cover up with my mind, even for a few moments, just won’t go away.

In some ways, I want to go back to how my life was a few days ago before all of this happened, but in other ways, I know that going back would only make me as ignorant and vulnerable as I was then. At least knowing what’s out there gives me some sort of advantage, or at least I sure hope it does.

How much longer will I have to hide from this psycho Marco? I hope not long because as soon as he’s dealt with, I’m going to Disney World. I know that sounds silly but I have to have something in life to look forward to because right now everything sounds like hell. My future is not looking so well, at least I don’t feel like it is. I am well aware that this Marco guy is strong enough to not only win this fight over me but also destroy my family. I think I might even be crushed if D gets hurt in all of this, although he is definitely annoying and not to mention a complete jerk.

It’s not long before my assumptions about my dad are brought to reality and there is a small tap on my door. I know it’s my dad and I know exactly why he’s here. He’s here to talk to me about how screwed up my life has gotten in the last few days. Before he says a word I know what he’s here to do. He will apologize more times than any person should for anything and then he will ask me a million times how I am and if I’m okay.

“Come in.” I mumble.