Page 3 of Liberty

“Me,” I answered immediately.

“Why you?” Ellis questioned, his grip on the envelope visibly tightened as if I would snatch it directly out of his hand.

“The sooner I read what’s in there, the sooner I can get the fuck out of this house and back to my life that I love.” Mostly love. It’s fucking lonely, honestly. But I had so much fucking money, I didn’t need company, and if I did, I could buy it.

Ellis put his feet up on a nearby table. “We all want out of here. What makes you think you’re more important than the rest of us?”

“You make tables.” I rolled my eyes. “Your life has no importance.”

“All right, children,” Oak’s voice boomed, “Let’s settle down. Ellis, why don’t you read it out loud?”

Why didn’t he? Well, because reading it out loud would be the obvious solution and definitely one I had already thought of. Ellis didn’t respond, only used his thumb to work under the wax seal of the envelope until the slight pop of its release echoed through the room. Then he reached a hand inside before pulling out a stack of papers of various sizes.

He stared at the paper for a moment, and for a second, I thought I saw a moment of vulnerability, a wavering second of weakness before a shield went up and a bored, stone face took over. He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the movement as we all looked on, waiting in silence for him to say something.

He licked his lips as his eyes glanced over the paper. “It’s a letter.”

I assumed as much. “Are you going to read it, or should we put up a tent for the wait?”

He cleared his throat as his eyes shot daggers straight at me. Then he began to read.

To the dearest of children,

I know this may come as a shock to you three, but you have always been my favorite. Though you didn’t choose this life, you have adapted and lived it like you were born for it, and the truth is, you were. From the moment I first set eyes on you, I knew you were meant for more. But the timing was wrong, impossible, really.

The story started long before you were born. I was born just a man, one like you once were before there was such talk of vampires and werewolves. I was married, and by all accounts, I was a wonderful man. But I had a weakness. A weakness I wasn’t proud of.

Greta.

The name would forever be engrained into my mind, plastered into my memory, scarring my soul. She was my weakness. The one thing I couldn’t live without. The one person I couldn’t have and Greta, well, Greta was a witch.

I wish I had known. Had I known then, I wouldn’t be here now. You wouldn’t be here now. But I was blind. Blinded completely by Greta’s unmatchable beauty. My disloyalty to my wife meant nothing when Greta was near. All I could think about was her, all I could breathe was her name, and I came to a decision.

I would leave my wife and run away with Greta.

The plan was laid out, arrangements were made, and though I knew it was wrong, the anticipation that strummed through my veins was like a high one could never imagine. On the night I was set to leave, my bag was packed, and I was ready. But, on the way out the door, my wife Sarah stopped me. Excitement and happiness written all over her face.

She was with child.

My child.

A father. A real father, if you could imagine that. Me.

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t leave Sarah to run away with Greta now that I knew I would be a parent. So I left that night. I wanted to tell Greta I changed my mind, that Sarah was pregnant and there was no possible way I could go through with our plans. But when I got there, she took one look at me, and she knew. She knew I had changed my mind the moment she saw I had no bag, and she was furious.

Before I could blink, she had me thrown against a wall, using a force I didn’t know she possessed. Her eyes rolled back as words I could never decipher fell from her lips and blood poured from my ears, eyes, nose, mouth. I was choking on it. I was breathing it. All I could hear was the sound of my blood as it flowed from my body.

I grew weak. My legs no longer able to hold me up, and I slouched to the ground. Before me, Greta, the woman that I loved, fell to her knees. My eyelids grew heavy, and before I let them flutter closed for one last time, she smiled the wickedest of smiles and said, “You will spend all of eternity alone, James. Your bloodline dies tonight with you. I can only hope you spend every day until your head leaves your body or silver pierces your heart thinking about this betrayal.”

My eyes closed, and she was gone.

She left that night, leaving town, never to know of Sarah’s pregnancy. Never to know of my child. When I woke, I was weak. I nearly had to crawl as I left her dwelling. But I was alive. At least, I thought so. I managed to pull myself to a neighboring house, desperate for help. When the old woman opened the door, she leaned down toward me, asking if I needed help.

I bit her.

The uncontrollable urge overtook me, and the moment she leaned close enough, my teeth sank into her neck in the quickest of snaps. Her blood, the richness of it, coated my throat, and I couldn’t get enough of it. I pulled more and more into my body until I was alive with her once striving life, and she was dead in front of me.

The adjustment was hard at first. But living on other people’s life forces became easier, shockingly so. Soon, I learned the ways of it, learned not to murder everyone I touched, and discovered that with this curse of death and destruction came the gift of eternal life. I healed faster than ever before, and I no longer feared death because I knew that death would be hard to come by.

---