Mom and Dad wouldn’t stop talking. They kept asking Patrick why he did what he did. They started talking about the “brush.” Some green-looking hair brush that meant nothing to me. I remembered Patrick holding a brush when he came over the night we finally got back together. It just didn’t make any sense.

  They were acting like this thing was a fucking genie’s lamp, and Patrick had made a wish that granted him everything he wanted. It pissed me off… fuck it pissed me off. I just wanted to reach across the room to my Dad and squeeze his throat. Then Mom started joining in… trying to console me as I got worked up… It made me want to reach out and shove her ass across the room. I did just that.

  The moment my hands made contact with her and thrust out with all my strength, it felt good. Finally, I was letting go of all the other bonds I felt were holding me back and keeping me further away from Patrick. But no more! I wasn’t going to let anyone, not even my own family, stand between him and me.

  But the funny thing was… no, not funny… infuriating. The infuriating thing was that, as much conviction as I felt in our relationship, Patrick started saying things that didn’t make sense. He started almost agreeing with them. Saying things like he knew what they were talking about. He was hesitant at first… but then he just started caving.

  Dad had already grabbed me and had me trapped in his arms. He stopped me from getting the brush myself. I wanted it so they couldn’t have it… I think. I felt so much conviction to get the brush, but didn’t truly understand why. But it didn’t matter; the anger just swelled and blended everything.

  I watched as Shelta snatched the brush from Patrick like it was magic. Like if she could just get it away from his grip, everything they wanted would come true. They would split us up... OVER MY DEAD FUCKING BODY!

  What are you doing… why are you saying this? I couldn’t form the words. I felt so betrayed by Patrick. I couldn’t believe that he was doing this to me after all we’d been through, all we’d done to get back together. He was buying into this bullshit idea that they were putting out.

  I was planning a move to get free of Dad’s grip. I was going to show them what happened to people who got between me and the man I was supposed to be with. No one was going to take him from me again, not even Patrick himself. I wouldn’t let him be deceived by all of these assholes. They may have been my family once, but now they were trying to take away my entire world. I had to do something to stop them. I had to show them the seriousness of their betrayal. All of them.

  I felt my skin tingle, and goosebumps began to rise as I let go of the bonds that I had once held so closely. It was freeing. Unexplainably… I felt my strength rise.

  I surged against Carter… raging inside his grip as I tried to get free. He was strong though… I had to give him that. They spoke words to me, to each other, but I didn’t care. All I cared about in that moment was breaking free from his grip. I could feel my strength level rising still, the anger inside of me growing to meet their continued assault against my personal life. They didn’t want me to be with Patrick for some reason. But I wasn’t going to let them tell me what to do. Not anymore!

  I shifted and pivoted in Carter’s grip, trying to pry myself free. I could hear him yelling at Eleanor, and she ran away down the hall. She couldn’t stand what he was doing either. Or she was afraid of what I was going to do to her once I got free. If any of the others tried to stop me, I would do the same to them. They weren’t my family anymore. I just had to get free of Carter first.

  Right as I was about to surge with all of my strength, I felt a stab on the side of my neck, and then a slight pressure as a plunger went down. I mashed my teeth together in pain at first, but then in concentration as I tried to overcome what was happening to me. I felt tired… sluggish… and then… it all went black.

  They all stared at me from the other side of the bars. They looked at me with pity, some with disgust, some with a longing like they had lost something. I was the one who had lost something. They had taken Patrick from me. Paraded him around in front of this silver cell so I could see that he was with them.

  He wouldn’t be with them forever. I would get him back. I would show him that he was supposed to be with me. Whatever tricks or gypsy persuasion they had done on him would wear off eventually, once I got him far enough away from them. I just had to take my time.

  As time went on, more people showed up. There was always someone down in the basement with me as I rotted away in their silver cell. Martin came a lot, the old vampire staring at me for hours on end like he could see inside of me… understand something that no one else could. He didn’t know shit. He was always butting in on our lives, tainting our family with his monstrous existence. We should have just killed him a long time ago and never dirtied our hands in dealing with him. Now he was just like the rest of them, even worse, a leech too scared of his own power… lingering around with humans as he tried to insert himself in human events. He wasn't human anymore. He was a monster.

  Clara and Wayland came by often, and they spoke about Delilah and how she missed her cousin Auti… They just didn’t understand, though… they weren’t Uncle Wayland or Aunt Clara anymore… they were strangers. Auti didn’t exist anymore… and if they wanted to keep that little kid safe and free of the punishment I was going to bring down on them… Then they would keep her away from me.

  They were just like the rest of them. They didn’t understand. They were all holding onto a little girl who was a memory now. They wanted to keep me in a cookie-cutter mold of what they wanted… daughter, niece, college student, monster hunter. I wanted to just be me… and be with the person I wanted. But they didn’t let me.

  I was honestly surprised when Chris and Raven showed up with their three daughters. He wasn’t really my uncle; we just called him that. He was my dad’s uncle. Their three daughters, River, Raine, and Rose, were more like Aunts to me… when I still viewed them as family. Now they had been so far removed for a long time that they could have basically been strangers like the rest of them, even if they weren’t a part of this. However, now that they were obviously on Eleanor and Carter’s side with all of this shit, they slipped into the category with everyone else, too.

  Every time anyone talked to me through those silver bars, I just bared my teeth and told them exactly what I thought about them. They couldn’t understand how they had betrayed me, hurt me, and kept the one I was meant to be with away from me. Not only that, but they had tainted his mind. He looked so willing to stay with them all on the other side of the bars, away from me. I just had to take my time until they slipped. For now… I would just watch.

  Days passed, then weeks had passed, and I don’t think I had spoken a word in a long while. Most of what I had going on was internal. I knew that speaking was a weakness. If I engaged with them verbally, they would try to find a weak point in me. So, I shut down, locked everything inside, and lived there. It also helped with what they tried to do during the rituals.

  Most of the time, I didn’t even know it was happening since they were knocking me out with a tranquilizer. Then they’d bind me in chains as my strength grew. I could feel it in my bones… in the grip of my fists. Something was changing inside of me. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was or how it was possible, but ever since the rage that was first born after they took Patrick from me, I felt my power growing. It was all physical, all tied up inside of me. The more I was away from Patrick, the stronger I got. It was a weapon that I would hide. When they slipped up… I’d used it on all of them. But I had to be strategic first… getting to a silver weapon first so I could take out the leech, then I’d move to Jane if she was present. Then… the rest of the humans would all fall. Then it would just be me and Patrick once again.

  I could see the look in my Carter’s eyes when he tried to tranquilize me the last time, and he knew that he wasn't enough anymore. They had to have Jane help or even Martin sometimes. But even they were hesitant. But as much as I fought them off, they always overpowered me. I wasn’t strong enough yet, but soon I would be. The strength kept growing… and I kept waiting. I underplayed my hand and even held back most of the time so they wouldn’t learn just how strong I was getting. Not until it was too late.

  There was one highlight while I was a prisoner in the basement cage. The redheaded slut from Martin’s dumbass vampire bar came stumbling into my parents’ house. She was all bent out of shape about how something had happened to Sam… Even just thinking his name pissed me off!

  They had gone underneath the city to the caverns that lay beneath everything. They somehow got into the pits… that place they all talked about. They found something, or someone, that was too strong for even his dark side. That inhuman monstrosity he carried around inside of him was finally snuffed out. Good… Just another distraction that was corrupting my family… finally put to rest.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  That skank, Alex, didn’t like my reaction to her words. She barked at me, made empty threats that she wouldn’t carry out. She seemed attached to him almost. Like, somehow, they had formed some kind of sickening love connection wherever they hid in the shadows. They must have found a bond between all their killing and gluttonous consumption of blood and flesh. They were disgusting beasts, nothing more. But I shouldn’t be surprised… birds of a feather and all.

  However, Alex made it her mission to “help me.” She had also engaged in holding me down to inject me with the tranquilizer. She was there every time, once Jane couldn’t look me in the eyes to do it anymore. Martin didn’t trust himself to do it for long. He wouldn’t say why, but I knew he saw the temptation to drink from me… fucking degenerate.

  I could see his reaction when he was close, so I knew it was a weakness to exploit. He didn’t last long with his struggle before he quit… Not to mention how I offered it to him. I could see a strange hope in his eyes when a human offered what he craved.

  Alex’s arrival changed all that. She never spoke much, only acting like an emotionless machine to pin me against the bars and stick me in the neck with the syringe.

  It was like this for weeks, so many rituals were conducted, but every time I would awaken, and nothing had changed. Whatever they were trying to get out of me, whatever they were trying to change, was not happening. It frustrated them. And it thrilled me that I could withhold what they wanted. Now I just wanted to spite them. But even more than that… I wanted to hurt them.

  Then… one night… I could tell something had changed. Something in the air of the basement was different as they all came down again… one by one. A little bit more care was put into the ritual circles; the diagrams and the wardings that they inscribed in the concrete itself. There was almost a piece in their eyes, like no matter what happened, success or failure, they were going to be okay.

  I started getting a bad feeling, like they may be done with whatever they were trying, and they might just kill me outright. I listened to them, staring through the sheet of long black hair that hung in front of my face. I used it like a shield to keep their eyes off me. I hated when they looked at me, like they didn’t deserve to see me anymore after everything they had done. Everything to keep me from the one I was meant for… Patrick.

  Even now, I knew I loved him so much… and I needed to be as close as humanly possible with him. It didn’t make sense… but it didn’t need it to. That kind of love wasn’t explainable, it just was, and I had to be as physically close as our souls were. I could feel it. If only I could just make the rest of them understand, if only I could make Patrick understand again. I had to… I had to make them all see. I had to make it so that they couldn’t look away.

  Then here she came, Alex, strolling into the cell, turning the key in the door, and entering the cage with me. She moved in like a soulless monster, eyes staring at me with no mercy, blood-red hair hanging almost slick like it was blood itself. Yet… even with her, the skank, there was something different. It was a look of resignation… defeat. It was different than the others: Frank, Carter, Eleanor, Clara… all of them. Alex’s eyes held something that looked like an ultimate defeat. The look in someone’s eyes before they’re about to sacrifice something dear to them.

  I lashed out at her quickly, trying to get the upper hand, but she was too strong. She pinned me back to the bars with a metallic thud. She was crushing one hand around my neck, sending the chains that bound my wrists vibrating with force. I could see in her free hand that she held the syringe half-filled with the same yellowish-tinted tranquilizer. Alex leaned in close, shifting her body so her back was facing everyone else watching from beyond the cage.

  “All he wanted was to save you. To keep you from the dangers he represented. I told him so many times that he needed to let you go. To let all of you go. But it wasn’t even him that got you. It was something already tied to your family.”

  As this bitch was talking, I watched her lift the syringe and stick it in her own arm. I felt my eyes bulge even more as she did it, and they grew even more frantic as I watched her pull the plunger out, drawing in crimson blood that tainted and died the tranquilizer into a darker shade of diluted yellowish-red. My heart started beating frantically as fears from the deepest part of my mind sprang forward. She was about to inject me with that. I knew she was, and I had to break free.

  I thrashed and tried to break through the chains and her grip that pinned me to the cage. There was no use, though. Her vice-like grip clamped down on my throat in a way that made the two sides of my esophagus smash together, cutting off all air. She shifted her body again as she brought the syringe up and placed it right in my neck just as she had all those times before. The shift of her body was to keep the others from seeing the syringe. She didn’t want them to know what she had just done. She had stabbed me in the neck with a curse. She wanted to make me into one of her… a fucking leech.

  My mind raced though… I knew that I would have to die with it in my system to activate and turn me. It was a loose knowledge, never really ironing out the exact specifics myself. I think the people I once called family kept that kind of information locked down, so we didn’t have any family members seeing that as a way to gain more power by cursing themselves into being the very thing we hunted. But… I knew enough. I had to make my move now. There was no more waiting. No more biding my time. It was do or die time if I didn’t want to become a vampire.

  Then my mind wandered darkly. If something happens… and I do turn… the first thing I’ll do is kill everyone in this house.

  Then, Alex whispered into my ear, “Long ago… I made a promise to myself. I would never do what was done to me.” Her lips quivered around her fangs for a moment. Then she continued, “But recently I made a new promise… I would keep you safe… and alive for him. This is never what he would have wanted, but he wouldn’t want you dead either. Consider this insurance…”

  Then, my body started becoming sluggish again as it always did, but this time, as the darkness overtook me, my heart started beating harder, thrumming in my ears as the lights went out. As I lay there unconscious, the beating of my heart never stopped, even through the medically induced slumber. Before my mind fully went, I made a promise to myself. The moment I was free, I was going to get Patrick back and be as close with him as possible. I didn’t care who I had to kill… if they got in my way… they were dead.

  There was so much pain in my veins. Green energy was everywhere; it filled my mind, my eyes, everything. All of my awareness was absorbed into a power that surged through me. I felt connected with Patrick again; it was there, but not directly. Like I could sense him, but couldn’t feel him like I needed to.

  It was the rituals again. Trying to use their gypsy power on me to change me… to take us away from each other. I resisted it, I fought it, and pulled myself back together. Then I had a thought.

  Why not play along for a second? What if I let go just a little bit to make it seem like I was no longer fighting, but they had succeeded?

  It wasn’t an easy thing, but a challenge. To sit there bound by some unseen power and release almost all of myself when I felt it being pulled away. I only had the thinnest of connections to who I truly was, still clinging to my soul. It was one of the hardest things I had to do, but I willingly allowed them to draw parts of me away to trick them. So they’d stop their ritual. So they would feel that it was complete. It was the biggest show of playing possum any of them had probably ever seen.

  It was hard for me to move my body at that time; they had taken so much. I knew in my mind, in my heart, what was real. They could never take that away. They may have succeeded with Patrick. They may have gotten him to forget everything and to give up who he was and what we had… but I was not going to let that happen. I could be strong enough for both of us.

  I had to show them all. I had to show Patrick how close we were meant to be together. And I had to make them all pay for the betrayals they had made against me.

  Things in the basement settled, and voices slowly crept over us. I could hear Shelta and Sarah wallowing over Patrick like he had been saved. It was pathetic. Shortly after that… I felt hands all over me. Carter and Eleanor were near… trying to get in… trying to pull something…

  NO… WHAT IS THAT?

  I could feel it… something else inside of me was trying to take over. There was something small, meek even, that was trying to gain control of my body. It wanted them… Mom… Dad.

  NO! NOT FAMILY!

  What was this? How had they done this? It was like their ritual had succeeded, and something had finally taken root in me that they had been planning this whole time. It was what they wanted me to be… this weak, submissive person who just wanted to be with them again. Part of me… wanted to…

  It lingered for only a moment before I saw Patrick and how close he was to me. I had to make us closer. I HAD TO!

  I shoved whatever this new thing was inside of me back into the pits of my soul. I’d deal with it later. Then I pulled everything back to me. Every last shred of my power was back from where it had been siphoned off to. It was mine…and it was back!

  A rush of power and energy surged through me. The moment I felt strength enough in my limbs, I moved towards Patrick. I wanted him to see how much he had hurt me with his betrayal. I knew that we would be together forever, but all I had to do was get to him to show him how much I loved him. I wanted to see every bit of him, even the inside parts that no one else got to see.

  I lunged forward, moving as quickly as possible. I latched on to him and mounted him. I wanted him to see me… directly me and no one else. Before I realized it, a jag of something was in my hand, and I felt all the rage boiling into my fist as I clenched it tightly in my shaky grip.

  I brought it down and hit Patrick in the face with it, feeling a sensation wash over me as I knew he was understanding how much he had hurt me. So, I showed him again, and then again, and again. I kept showing him how much he hurt me until all of him was exposed to me, and I felt closer to him than I ever had. He was leaking out everywhere, but that was okay, because I knew I would be joining him soon. I didn’t know what it meant… but I felt so close to him now that I knew our souls would not be held by the physical.

  Then something cut through me, through my very soul. I felt everything fade away. The liar finally let go… I let go… and for a split second… two halves of a hole separated.

  There was a half of me that was so full of rage, anger, and obsession that it was ready to kill everyone. It was fading away, spent… and used for its very purpose. The other half was the girl… Autumn. This was the hunter, the daughter, the friend, the ex-girlfriend… The one who wanted to save lives. She was utterly destroyed, hidden behind a veil of deceit and rage, twisted and chewed up by what she now knew was a curse. That’s who had been in control all this time… that’s who she had been. The real Autumn had been sealed away, overpowered by something supernatural. All of the words her family and friends had said to her were true. What were once bold-faced lies were the truth.

  Then… I felt like something inside of me just gave out. In the last moment that I saw Patrick bleeding out and mutilated under my grip… I knew that he had just died. In that same instant… I felt it. Death had come for me, too. There was no pain… just release into nothing.