Chapter Two
Dark, menacing images floated through Melody’s mind. How long had she been trapped in the prison of her own body?
Part of her consciousness struggled to the surface for a brief second; she thought she heard a familiar male’s voice. A male she used to admire, fantasize about.
No. It couldn’t be. He didn’t care about her.
Why would he? She was a poor human and he was a gorgeous, intelligent, strong, strapping vampire.
Not that it mattered anymore. She’d been stuck in darkness for so long, with no clue as to how she arrived, or what had happened.
The haze of her mind swelled, thickening and suffocating, until she figuratively crept back to the corner. She’d been in this void of nothingness for so long she didn’t know if she’d died, if she was still alive, or if she’d gotten sucked to another realm, one full of emptiness.
No, not empty. Rage bubbled around her, like a cauldron, and not one of those empty smoking ones from Halloween. If rage were tangible, it’d be bubbling over the pot, spilling to taint everything it touched.
Why the rage? It was so unlike her. She never lost her temper. Never. It was a matter of pride. She was the calm in the storm, even if the storm beat at her, stripping her of self-esteem, eroding her self-worth, and finally, robbing her of the solitary life she’d built for herself. It hadn’t been one to shout from the rooftops about, but it’d been hers.
Where did the emotion come from? Her body was intangible. She couldn’t see, couldn’t reach out. Incorporeal imagery, that’s how she’d describe it.
Nothingness.
Wait… Was that an emotion? Of course. It was what she felt most of her life, since childhood. If she let nothing get to her, it couldn’t destroy her, and she’d hang on to the scraps of her sense of self. Some days, it’d been all she’d had.
A stronger emotion collapsed the wall of nothingness she’d structured throughout her life. She was angry. No. Furious.
He rejected me!
Who?
Everything was so jumbled in this empty space. Who had she been thinking about?
Of course. The male’s voice she thought she heard was Creed. Even in this place of nothing he haunted her. Even in this place of bad vibes and troubled feelings, she couldn’t get over him.
Gathering her apathy, she built up her wall. Keep out the anger. It’d never done her any good. It never changed a thing.
Once it ebbed, another feeling emerged. She was famished. Hunger ate at her insides, sending stomach acid roiling in her belly.
Desperately, she looked around the blackness for something to eat. How could she see? She couldn’t. Had she forced herself to feel nothing for so long that eventually she’d become just that? No body, but an incorporeal spirit wandering in the dark? She either floated about on waves of thoughts or stayed anchored in this void abyss, she couldn’t tell. Did she even have a mouth? It’d be her luck to find a double cheeseburger and not be able to eat the damn thing.
Melody, wouldn’t you rather have a smoothie?
Mom’s words echoed from nowhere. Could ghosts be haunted by other ghosts? Melody would laugh if she could, but no sound resonated in this place. Her mom had given up on her when she’d been alive, she wouldn’t exert the effort of haunting Melody in the afterlife, if that’s what this was.
The hunger gnawed at her. How could she feel? No matter, it was better than the anger. A smoothie wouldn’t satisfy this hunger anyway. She’d never liked the same food as her mom. Just one more sign that she was inadequate in Mom’s eyes.
A spark flared in the void. Red. Hot and burning. The fury was returning. How’d she stop it before? Think about food.
Yes, back to smoothies. If she was sick and couldn’t stomach real food, maybe. Otherwise, why drink a meal when she could relish biting into a medium rare ribeye? The red faded to a dull glow. More thoughts about food!
That’d been a perk of living with vampires. Plenty of quality meat around her. She no longer had to live on discount steak and hamburger and boxed sides. Meals were as robust as she wanted and there was always dessert stocked in the freezer if there wasn’t a fresh pie on the counter. Even better: No one commented on what she ate. The energy she expended running after the boys made calories an afterthought.
The boys. Their images rose. Xavier and Ari, the two boys she nannied for. So little, so cute, so mischievous. Would they blame themselves?
For what?
She struggled to latch onto the thought. It’d come from her. She knew what happened, she just had to access the memory.
An image floated by. An angry vampire under her. Her own desperation to stop the female.
Yes, now she recalled the details. She’d staked that demon-possessed vampire who meant to use the boys as bait, and probably eat them. A dark pit forming with a yawning groan and…
What? What had happened after that?
She struggled to summon the events. Surging hopelessness filled the void only to be wiped away by an irate wave.
There would be no forgetting. Remember that shit!
Melody gasped into the void. Was that actual sound? The spark of ire fueled her focus to remember what had happened.
Anchored to the wall by a masochist demoness. The suffocating hold of the conjured roots. That’s right. She hadn’t gotten away fast enough and had tumbled through the portal. She hadn’t run away because she’d been shot.
So she’d been transported to the underworld. Hypna had imprisoned her to use as bait. Then what?
The handsome male she adored arriving to rescue her yet again.
No!
He’d rejected her. Then he’d failed in his rescue and she…
Didn’t know what happened after that.
Confusion swept by.
“Melody?”
That voice. Her insides swam joyous circles as soon as it hit her eardrums. He’s here, he’s here.
Creed.
She stilled, hunkering down to become an observer, just like her father taught her on one of their many hunting trips. Just be present, Mel. Don’t let your worries scare the wildlife away. Be still.
Dad had failed her in so many ways, but when they were out in the field, she could let the hurt and resentment fade. And that’s what she did now. Clearing her mind, she listened.
“Hellfire, Melody I swear I saw you move. Do it again. Come on. You can do it.”
She could totally do it. Because Creed asked her so nicely.
No! Then she should do the opposite, not what he wanted. She should be upset with him.
But he’d asked her to move. Move what? She had no clue where her body was. Her thoughts had only appeared recently, leaving her with a to-do list that only included sorting her tangle of memories.
She concentrated harder. It was like she hovered above a raging sea of emotions. Large waves of anger crashed against smaller crests of bitterness and jealousy. Where’d jealousy come from? Maybe the steady, clockwise sinkhole formed in the middle. At times, it seemed like the sinkhole changed position and threw out another emotion.
Why not happiness? Why not contentment? She’d been both of those before this happened. Somewhat. Maybe.
No, she’d been happy. Depressed at what she’d heard Creed say, but content at least. She’d had a good life. Well, it could’ve been worse. Her parents may be gone, her friends lacking, but she’d been making new ones among the vampires. As much as a human could be befriended by vampires. The boys adored her, their parents fond of her. She’d had a nicer roof overhead than any she’d had in life prior to Rourke’s brother stealing her from her pathetic life. No, it hadn’t been pathetic, she reminded herself firmly. “Never feel sorry for yourself” should’ve been her motto, should be what they carved on her gravestone. But she couldn’t deny that with the vampires, she ate better, and while she had to become a night owl, she was content, and at times, happy-ish.
Right?
She imagined stretching out until she filled every nook and cranny of the void. No body, no limits. Ooh, she liked that idea. No limits, after a life filled with them.
There. She sensed her corporeal form, weighed down like heaps of lead sat on her chest. So, wait. She wasn’t dead?
Creed wanted her to move and she hated disappointing him, though she couldn’t do much about the ultimate disappointment of being human. The red glowed deeper, her rage growing.
To escape the emotion, she threw all her attention into following the outline of her body. She located her hand. She really was alive!
Imagining her fingers curling, then flexing, she was attuned to her body enough to feel the move.
“Look—she twitched.” The excitement in Creed’s voice tinted her black world with a faint blush. Her cesspool tossed out a bead of pleasure. She’d pleased him, and she’d wanted to please him so badly.
Fury blanked her mind. The negative emotions threatened to take over. That wasn’t her. She didn’t fester in hurt feelings and it was costing her hold on her body. Think, think.
Her eyelids. If she could open her eyes, maybe she could stay in this world, maybe she could leave the darkness.
Flowing through the husk that was her, she reoriented herself and found her eyes. Her thoughts and emotions expanded and coalesced into her form, until she was Melody again. Disappointingly human.
Or was she? Because she was different. Fundamentally altered.
Her eyes flew open with that thought. Her chest expanded to a painful maximum capacity with a gasp.
Something else was inside her body that hadn’t been there before.