CHAPTER 9
It wasn’t long before the pack arrived outside the mansion again. Isabel had gotten used to hikes; somehow her transformation had given her the unbreakable stamina of an athlete, the kind that’s not even comparable to normal human strength. She signaled for Presten to step outside, so he did, and when he was confronted with seventeen people standing out in the field, his lips curved to a smile. “I see you’ve done a good job,” he said, marching to them. Jared stared at him in awe.
“You’re Presten,” he said, pushing past his mates and reaching his hand out to him. “I’m Jared, I’ve heard a lot about you at the old mansion.”
“Oh, wow, I did not expect that,” Presten said, taking Jared’s hand and shaking it. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jared.”
“Pleasure to meet you, too,” he said. Presten could feel the eyes of the crowd on him. He peered over his shoulder and the rest of newcomers were staring at him like he was some kind of god. He knew he was the chosen one, but never in a million years would he have thought people would actually recognize him. “So, should we head out to the train station?” he asked, turning to Isabel.
“Yes,” she said, averting her gaze to Oz, who just nodded at her.
“It’s a long way to the train station,” he said. “We’ll need to take the bus. But remember, none of us are allowed to talk about internal affairs in public, especially when there are a lot of people around.”
“Roger that,” Isabel said. The pack made their way downhill again, Isabel and Presten walking side by side. The four succubi had decided to return to the rebel mansion to keep an eye on the hostages while the rest were away. Isabel put all her trust in them, after all, it was Ava who recruited them, and she trusted her judgement over anything. Isabel and Presten were lost in conversation, Isabel mostly forgetting that Oz was even there. There were times when she would feel his eyes on her, but she didn’t care. He was emitting so much negative energy that even Isabel couldn’t handle it. She bumped into Presten as they walked, their bodies colliding intermittently as they made their way downhill. The air was crisp and for the first time in a long time, Isabel felt free, and no one could take that away from her. She wasn’t trapped inside a musty mansion anymore, and neither was she confined to a green patch of a yard. And the truth was, it felt great. “You know, I can’t believe we’re doing this,” she said, the steady thump of her footsteps setting the beat for her movements.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this, either,” Presten said, his eyes on the ground beneath him. “We need to be careful, though; once we get there, we need to have come up with a plan. We can’t just barge into the council.”
“I know,” Isabel said. “We need to settle down somewhere first.” The pack made it to the bus station and when they got on the bus, Isabel took the seat next to Presten, the two of them not speaking a single word to each other on the way to the train station. Isabel just stared out the window, her eyes following the road. The landscape shifted from rural to urban as the bus made its way downtown. “This is really weird,” Isabel whispered, her lips barely moving. In a way, she felt like she was relearning everything all over again. It was almost as if she had forgotten how to deal with people, how to smile at them as they passed her by and how to properly thank them when they held the door open for her. All those little things, she needed to learn all over again. She had been trapped in this tiny community for so long, that everything she once knew had become so foreign to her, so unnatural.
“What’s weird?” Presten asked, looking over her shoulder at the view outside. “The view’s beautiful.”
“Exactly,” Isabel jumped. “Aren’t you stunned by it? Don’t you miss it? Don’t you miss being outside?”
“I do,” he smiled. “I actually haven’t stopped freaking out ever since we left the mansion. I feel like an alien.”
“Me, too,” Isabel said, not taking her eyes off the road. “Everything is so… dynamic, but in a different way. Cars are hurrying by; people are going about their lives. But they have no idea we exist. They mock people like us, because they only see us in storybooks.”
“You’re right, but that’s where we’re meant to live. Otherwise, the vampire’s prophecies will be fulfilled,” Presten said. Just the mention of them made Isabel’s skin crawl.
“Alright, well, we don’t want to talk about this too much… we don’t want anyone to hear us,” Isabel said, resting her head on Presten’s shoulder. She closed her eyes and dozed off for what felt like a couple of minutes but was probably longer. When she felt Presten’s hand come over her shoulder, she flinched awake, staring at the people around her as they grabbed their things and hopped off the bus.
The pack stood on the platform for a while before Oz realized they were too early. “Alright, well, we have time to sit down for some tea, who’s in?”
“I am,” Isabel said, nodding to a few chairs spread out over the pavement. “Let’s go sit there.”
There were so many of them now; a part of her wondered if they would be able to devise a concrete plan with that many people involved. She wasn’t used to working with a big group and she wasn’t used to devising plans like this. Suddenly it dawned on her that she was responsible for this whole thing, well, she and Presten. “Alright,” she said, slumping down on one of the many foldout chairs spread out in front of the coffee shop. “Now, first thing’s first: how about we all get to know each other?” The succubi exchanged brief glances before they pulled out some chairs and sat down in a circle. Isabel eyed them expectantly, waiting for them to introduce themselves.
“I’m Solange,” one of them said. Isabel tried to identify the source of the smooth, sultry sound, and when she realized the voice belonged to the woman sitting next to her, she smiled.
“Hello, Solange. I’m Isabel,” she said.
“I know you, Isabel,” the dark-skinned woman said. “We all do. You’re a legend and we can’t wait to work with you.”
“Solange, where do you come from? I want to know more about you,” Isabel said, leaning forward in her seat. She brought her hands together and turned to look at her. Instantly, the woman’s eyes dropped to the floor.
“I come from a humble background,” she said. “My brother and I, we’re both from Nigeria.” She pointed to one of the incubi sitting across from her. He nodded at Isabel to acknowledge her, and then continued to fumble with the pepper shaker.
“Hello,” he said. “My name is Abeo. It’s nice to finally meet you, Isabel.”
“It’s great to meet you, too, Abeo,” she said, reaching her hand out to him. “So, how long have you been living here?” she asked, her eyes darting back and forth between the two siblings.
“Our parents brought us out here when I was five,” Abeo said, his pearly teeth showing through his smile. “We were practically raised here.”
“And what about you, Solange? How old were you when you came to France?” Isabel asked.
“I was five,” she said. “Abeo and I are twins.”
Isabel’s lips curved to a smile. There was something about them that felt very warm, very friendly. But she knew she had to be careful, nonetheless. “That’s interesting,” she said. “And, if you don’t mind me asking… when did the two of you transform? How did you cope with your transformation?” she asked.
“Well, it’s kind of awkward to talk about that time you had sex with two women on the same night in front of your sister,” Abeo chuckled.
Isabel laughed. “You’re probably right,” she said, looking somewhere over Abeo’s shoulder. She could see him out of the corner of her eye; he was smiling, a smile so radiant that Isabel couldn’t help but smile, too. “But how did you cope? Was it hard for you?” she asked again.
“It was extremely hard,” Solange said, knitting her brows. “Abeo and I… we both suffered, but then we realized we were better off this way.”
“You were better off away from your family?” Isabel asked with her head tilted.
“Yes,” Solange nodded. “Our father… he was very abusive. So when Abeo and I were abducted by the succubi, we couldn’t have been more grateful.”
Isabel wished she knew what to say. Most of the time she tended to avoid thinking about her family and friends. She didn’t want to face that. There was a chance that she would never see them again; they were probably convinced she was dead. She thought about the heartache she must have caused them by disappearing so suddenly, without a trace. They knew nothing about her, and they probably never will. Isabel shook her head; she didn’t want to think about this right now, because if it sank in for one second, she knew she would probably have a nervous breakdown. “I’m glad to hear that,” Isabel said after a long pause. “You see I’ve always imagined transformations to be struggle stories, something mostly negative… but you, guys, you’ve changed the rules completely.”
“And what about you, Isabel, what was transformation like for you?” Solange asked, her head cocked to the side.
“It was pretty hard,” she said. “I had to leave my family, I couldn’t cope with the fact that I didn’t even recognize myself in the mirror most of the time. And when I learned I was the chosen one, well, it freaked me out even more.”
“Yeah, I was going to ask… how did you react to that, realizing you were the chosen one?” Abeo asked.
“I didn’t take it very well,” Isabel admitted. “I was in denial… I didn’t know what was being asked of me. Basically, I freaked the fuck out.”
Abeo and Solange chuckled. The conversation trailed off, and soon enough, all thirteen of them had to get up to catch the train. Isabel felt her lungs inflate with the cool air. She knew they had a long journey ahead of them.
***
“Are you sure you know where it is?” Isabel asked, turning to Oz.
“Pretty sure,” he said, letting the cold fuel his walk. He hurried along the sidewalk, his eyes fixated on a red brick building with a glowing sign that read “motel” on its side. The gang would be spending the night there while they came up with a plot to infiltrate the council. They walked in through the revolving doors, Isabel wrapping her arms around herself to keep warm.
“Nice is way colder than I thought it would be,” she said, turning to Presten.
“I can keep you warm if you want me to,” he said, flashing her a smirk. Oz rolled his eyes and looked away. Isabel noticed. She went up to him and just stood there, searching his face for a reaction.
“Can I talk to you?” she asked, shifting her weight to one leg. Oz wasn’t being himself and she thought that, if they were going to work together, it was about time they patched things up.
“Yeah, what’s up?” Oz asked, his eyes fixated on a faraway point.
“You wanna sit over there?” she asked, nodding towards the seating area.
“How about we just go up to our rooms? It’s late,” he said, nodding towards the elevators, instead. Isabel shrugged, making her way for the automatic doors. She pressed the button to the elevator indicating the up direction, which, ironically, was made to glow red. Oz put one foot in front of the other, slowly following Isabel, and when they both stepped inside that elevator, she could feel nothing but the hunger gnawing at her. She missed Oz more than anything, but she told herself she wasn’t going to give in. He was giving her the cold shoulder and she didn’t really know why. Somewhere down the line between getting there and booking their rooms, Isabel had made the decision to talk to him. The elevator doors parted and after what felt like an eternity of trying to pull herself together, Isabel stopped Oz on his way to his room.
“Wait,” she said finally. “I need to talk to you.”